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TRUE DIGITAL
CONTROL
TRUE DIGITAL
CONTROL
STATISTICAL MODELLING
AND NON-MINIMAL STATE
SPACE DESIGN

C. James Taylor, Peter C. Young and Arun Chotai

Lancaster University, UK
This edition first published 2013

C 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Registered office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for
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publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert
assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

MATLAB R
is a trademark of The MathWorks, Inc. and is used with permission. The MathWorks does not warrant
the accuracy of the text or exercises in this book. This books use or discussion of MATLAB
R
software or related
products does not constitute endorsement or sponsorship by The MathWorks of a particular pedagogical approach or
particular use of the MATLAB R
software.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Taylor, C. James.
True digital control : statistical modelling and non-minimal state space design / C. James Taylor, Peter C. Young,
Arun Chotai.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-52121-2 (cloth)
1. Digital control systems–Design. I. Young, Peter C., 1939- II. Chotai, Arun. III. Title.
TJ223.M53T38 2013
629.8 95–dc23
2013004574

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-118-52121-2

Typeset in 10/12pt Times by Aptara Inc., New Delhi, India

1 2013
 To Ting-Li

To Wendy

In memory of Varsha
Contents
Preface xiii
List of Acronyms xv
List of Examples, Theorems and Estimation Algorithms xix

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Control Engineering and Control Theory 2
1.2 Classical and Modern Control 5
1.3 The Evolution of the NMSS Model Form 8
1.4 True Digital Control 11
1.5 Book Outline 12
1.6 Concluding Remarks 13
References 14
2 Discrete-Time Transfer Functions 17
2.1 Discrete-Time TF Models 18
2.1.1 The Backward Shift Operator 18
2.1.2 General Discrete-Time TF Model 22
2.1.3 Steady-State Gain 23
2.2 Stability and the Unit Circle 24
2.3 Block Diagram Analysis 26
2.4 Discrete-Time Control 28
2.5 Continuous to Discrete-Time TF Model Conversion 36
2.6 Concluding Remarks 38
References 38

3 Minimal State Variable Feedback 41

3.1 Controllable Canonical Form 44
3.1.1 State Variable Feedback for the General TF Model 49
3.2 Observable Canonical Form 50
3.3 General State Space Form 53
3.3.1 Transfer Function Form of a State Space Model 53
3.3.2 The Characteristic Equation, Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors 55
3.3.3 The Diagonal Form of a State Space Model 57
viii Contents

3.4 Controllability and Observability 58

3.4.1 Definition of Controllability (or Reachability) 58
3.4.2 Rank Test for Controllability 59
3.4.3 Definition of Observability 59
3.4.4 Rank Test for Observability 59
3.5 Concluding Remarks 61
References 62

4 Non-Minimal State Variable Feedback 63

4.1 The NMSS Form 64
4.1.1 The NMSS (Regulator) Representation 64
4.1.2 The Characteristic Polynomial of the NMSS Model 67
4.2 Controllability of the NMSS Model 68
4.3 The Unity Gain NMSS Regulator 69
4.3.1 The General Unity Gain NMSS Regulator 74
4.4 Constrained NMSS Control and Transformations 77
4.4.1 Non-Minimal State Space Design Constrained to yield a Minimal
SVF Controller 79
4.5 Worked Example with Model Mismatch 81
4.6 Concluding Remarks 85
References 86

5 True Digital Control for Univariate Systems 89

5.1 The NMSS Servomechanism Representation 93
5.1.1 Characteristic Polynomial of the NMSS Servomechanism Model 95
5.2 Proportional-Integral-Plus Control 98
5.2.1 The Closed-Loop Transfer Function 99
5.3 Pole Assignment for PIP Control 101
5.3.1 State Space Derivation 101
5.4 Optimal Design for PIP Control 110
5.4.1 Linear Quadratic Weighting Matrices 111
5.4.2 The LQ Closed-loop System and Solution of the Riccati Equation 112
5.4.3 Recursive Solution of the Discrete-Time Matrix Riccati Equation 114
5.5 Case Studies 116
5.6 Concluding Remarks 119
References 120

6 Control Structures and Interpretations 123

6.1 Feedback and Forward Path PIP Control Structures 123
6.1.1 Proportional-Integral-Plus Control in Forward Path Form 125
6.1.2 Closed-loop TF for Forward Path PIP Control 126
6.1.3 Closed-loop Behaviour and Robustness 127
6.2 Incremental Forms for Practical Implementation 131
6.2.1 Incremental Form for Feedback PIP Control 131
6.2.2 Incremental Form for Forward Path PIP Control 134
Contents ix

6.3 The Smith Predictor and its Relationship with PIP Design 137
6.3.1 Relationship between PIP and SP-PIP Control Gains 139
6.3.2 Complete Equivalence of the SP-PIP and Forward Path PIP
Controllers 140
6.4 Stochastic Optimal PIP Design 142
6.4.1 Stochastic NMSS Equations and the Kalman Filter 142
6.4.2 Polynomial Implementation of the Kalman Filter 144
6.4.3 Stochastic Closed-loop System 149
6.4.4 Other Stochastic Control Structures 150
6.4.5 Modified Kalman Filter for Non-Stationary Disturbances 151
6.4.6 Stochastic PIP Control using a Risk Sensitive Criterion 152
6.5 Generalised NMSS Design 153
6.5.1 Feed-forward PIP Control based on an Extended Servomechanism
NMSS Model 153
6.5.2 Command Anticipation based on an Extended Servomechanism
NMSS Model 154
6.6 Model Predictive Control 157
6.6.1 Model Predictive Control based on NMSS Models 158
6.6.2 Generalised Predictive Control 158
6.6.3 Equivalence Between GPC and PIP Control 159
6.6.4 Observer Filters 162
6.7 Concluding Remarks 163
References 164

7 True Digital Control for Multivariable Systems 167

7.1 The Multivariable NMSS (Servomechanism) Representation 168
7.1.1 The General Multivariable System Description 170
7.1.2 Multivariable NMSS Form 171
7.1.3 The Characteristic Polynomial of the Multivariable NMSS Model 173
7.2 Multivariable PIP Control 175
7.3 Optimal Design for Multivariable PIP Control 177
7.4 Multi-Objective Optimisation for PIP Control 186
7.4.1 Goal Attainment 187
7.5 Proportional-Integral-Plus Decoupling Control by Algebraic Pole
Assignment 192
7.5.1 Decoupling Algorithm I 193
7.5.2 Implementation Form 194
7.5.3 Decoupling Algorithm II 195
7.6 Concluding Remarks 195
References 196

8 Data-Based Identification and Estimation of Transfer Function Models 199

8.1 Linear Least Squares, ARX and Finite Impulse Response Models 200
8.1.1 En bloc LLS Estimation 202
8.1.2 Recursive LLS Estimation 203
x Contents

8.1.3 Statistical Properties of the RLS Algorithm 205

8.1.4 The FIR Model 210
8.2 General TF Models 211
8.2.1 The Box–Jenkins and ARMAX Models 212
8.2.2 A Brief Review of TF Estimation Algorithms 213
8.2.3 Standard IV Estimation 215
8.3 Optimal RIV Estimation 218
8.3.1 Initial Motivation for RIV Estimation 218
8.3.2 The RIV Algorithm in the Context of ML 220
8.3.3 Simple AR Noise Model Estimation 222
8.3.4 RIVAR Estimation: RIV with Simple AR Noise Model
Estimation 223
8.3.5 Additional RIV Algorithms 226
8.3.6 RIVAR and IV4 Estimation Algorithms 227
8.4 Model Structure Identification and Statistical Diagnosis 231
8.4.1 Identification Criteria 232
8.4.2 Model Structure Identification Procedure 234
8.5 Multivariable Models 243
8.5.1 The Common Denominator Polynomial MISO Model 243
8.5.2 The MISO Model with Different Denominator Polynomials 246
8.6 Continuous-Time Models 248
8.6.1 The SRIV and RIVBJ Algorithms for Continuous-Time Models 249
8.6.2 Estimation of δ-Operator Models 253
8.7 Identification and Estimation in the Closed-Loop 253
8.7.1 The Generalised Box−Jenkins Model in a Closed-Loop Context 254
8.7.2 Two-Stage Closed-Loop Estimation 255
8.7.3 Three-Stage Closed-Loop Estimation 256
8.7.4 Unstable Systems 260
8.8 Concluding Remarks 260
References 261

9 Additional Topics 265

9.1 The δ-Operator Model and PIP Control 266
9.1.1 The δ-operator NMSS Representation 267
9.1.2 Characteristic Polynomial and Controllability 268
9.1.3 The δ-Operator PIP Control Law 269
9.1.4 Implementation Structures for δ-Operator PIP Control 270
9.1.5 Pole Assignment δ-Operator PIP Design 271
9.1.6 Linear Quadratic Optimal δ-Operator PIP Design 272
9.2 Time Variable Parameter Estimation 279
9.2.1 Simple Limited Memory Algorithms 281
9.2.2 Modelling the Parameter Variations 282
9.2.3 State Space Model for DTF Estimation 284
9.2.4 Optimisation of the Hyper-parameters 287
Contents xi

9.3 State-Dependent Parameter Modelling and PIP Control 290

9.3.1 The SDP-TF Model 290
9.3.2 State-Dependent Parameter Model Identification and Estimation 292
9.3.3 Proportional-Integral-Plus Control of SDP Modelled Systems 293
9.4 Concluding Remarks 298
References 298

Appendix A Matrices and Matrix Algebra 301

A.1 Matrices 301
A.2 Vectors 302
A.3 Matrix Addition (or Subtraction) 302
A.4 Matrix or Vector Transpose 302
A.5 Matrix Multiplication 303
A.6 Determinant of a Matrix 304
A.7 Partitioned Matrices 305
A.8 Inverse of a Matrix 306
A.9 Quadratic Forms 307
A.10 Positive Definite or Semi-Definite Matrices 308
A.11 The Rank of a Matrix 308
A.12 Differentiation of Vectors and Matrices 308
References 310

Appendix B The Time Constant 311

Reference 311

Appendix C Proof of Theorem 4.1 313

References 314

Appendix D Derivative Action Form of the Controller 315

Appendix E Block Diagram Derivation of PIP Pole Placement Algorithm 317

Appendix F Proof of Theorem 6.1 321

Reference 322

Appendix G The CAPTAIN Toolbox 323

G.1 Transfer Functions and Control System Design 323
G.2 Other Routines 324
G.3 Download 325
References 325

Appendix H The Theorem of D.A. Pierce (1972) 327

References 328

Index 329
Preface
This book develops a True Digital Control (TDC) design philosophy that encompasses data-
based (statistical) model identification, through to control algorithm design, robustness evalua-
tion and implementation. Treatment of both stochastic system identification and control design
under one cover highlights the important connections between these disciplines: for example,
in quantifying the model uncertainty for use in closed-loop stochastic sensitivity analysis.
More generally, the foundations of linear state space control theory that are laid down in early
chapters, with Non-Minimal State Space (NMSS) design as the central worked example, are
utilised subsequently to provide an introduction to other selected topics in modern control
theory. MATLAB1 R
functions for TDC design and MATLAB R
scripts for selected examples
are being made available online, which is important in making the book accessible to readers
from a range of academic backgrounds. Also, the CAPTAIN Toolbox for MATLAB R
, which
is used for the analysis of all the modelling examples in this book, is available for free down-
load. Together, these contain computational routines for many aspects of model identification
and estimation; for NMSS design based on these estimated models; and for offline signal
processing. For more information visit: http://www.wiley.com/go/taylor.
The book and associated software are intended for students, researchers and engineers who
would like to advance their knowledge of control theory and practice into the state space
domain; and control experts who are interested to learn more about the NMSS approach
promoted by the authors. Indeed, such non-minimal state feedback is utilised throughout this
book as a unifying framework for generalised digital control system design. This includes
the Proportional-Integral-Plus (PIP) control systems that are the most natural outcome of the
NMSS design strategy. As such, the book can also be considered as a primer for potentially
difficult topics in control, such as optimal, stochastic and multivariable control.
As indicated by the many articles on TDC that are cited in this book, numerous colleagues
and collaborators have contributed to the development of the methods outlined. We would like
to pay particular thanks to our good friend Dr Wlodek Tych of the Lancaster Environment
Centre, Lancaster University, UK, who has contributed to much of the underlying research
and in the development of the associated computer algorithms. The first author would also
like to thank Philip Leigh, Matthew Stables, Essam Shaban, Vasileios Exadaktylos, Eleni
Sidiropoulou, Kester Gunn, Philip Cross and David Robertson for their work on some of the
practical examples highlighted in this book, among other contributions and useful discussions
while they studied at Lancaster. Philip Leigh designed and constructed the Lancaster forced
1 MATLAB
R
, The MathWorks Inc., Natick, MA, USA.
xiv Preface

ventilation test chamber alluded to in the text. Vasileios Exadaktylos made insightful sugges-
tions and corrections in relation to early draft chapters of the book. The second author is grateful
to a number of colleagues over many years including: Charles Yancey and Larry Levsen, who
worked with him on early research into NMSS control between 1968 and 1970; Jan Willems
who helped with initial theoretical studies on NMSS control in the early 1970s; and Tony
Jakeman who helped to develop the Refined Instrumental Variable (RIV) methods of model
identification and estimation in the late 1970s. We are also grateful to the various research
students at Lancaster who worked on PIP methods during the 1980s and 1990s, including
M.A. Behzadi, Changli Wang, Matthew Lees, Laura Price, Roger Dixon, Paul McKenna and
Andrew McCabe; to Zaid Chalabi, Bernard Bailey and Bill Day, who helped to investigate
the initial PIP controllers for the control of climate in agricultural glasshouses at the Silsoe
Research Institute; and to Daniel Berckmans and his colleagues at the University of Leuven,
who collaborated so much in later research on the PIP regulation of fans for the control of
temperature and humidity in their large experimental chambers at Leuven.
Finally, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the UK Engineering and Phys-
ical Sciences, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences, and Natural Environmental Research
Councils for their considerable financial support for our research and development studies at
Lancaster University.

C. James Taylor, Peter C. Young and Arun Chotai

Lancaster, UK
List of Acronyms
ACF AutoCorrelation Function
AIC Akaike Information Criterion
AML Approximate Maximum Likelihood
AR Auto-Regressive
ARIMAX Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving-Average eXogenous variables
ARMA Auto-Regressive Moving-Average
ARMAX Auto-Regressive Moving-Average eXogenous variables
ARX Auto-Regressive eXogenous variables
BIC Bayesian Information Criterion
BJ Box–Jenkins
CAPTAIN Computer-Aided Program for Time series Analysis and Identification
of Noisy systems
CLTF Closed-Loop Transfer Function
CT Continuous-Time
DARX Dynamic Auto-Regressive eXogenous variables
DBM Data-Based Mechanistic
DC Direct Current
DDC Direct Digital Control
DF Directional Forgetting
DT Discrete-Time
DTF Dynamic Transfer Function
EKF Extended or generalised Kalman Filter
EWP Exponential-Weighting-into-the-Past
FACE Free-Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment
FIR Finite Impulse Response
FIS Fixed Interval Smoothing
FPE Final Prediction Error
GBJ Generalised Box–Jenkins
GPC Generalised Predictive Control
GRIVBJ Generalised RIVBJ or RIVCBJ
GRW Generalised Random Walk
GSRIV Generalised SRIV or SRIVC
IPM Instrumental Product Matrix
IRW Integrated Random Walk
xvi List of Acronyms

IV Instrumental Variable
IVARMA Instrumental Variable Auto-Regressive Moving-Average
KF Kalman Filter
LEQG Linear Exponential-of-Quadratic Gaussian
LLS Linear Least Squares
LLT Local Linear Trend
LPV Linear Parameter Varying
LQ Linear Quadratic
LQG Linear Quadratic Gaussian
LTR Loop Transfer Recovery
MCS Monte Carlo Simulation
MFD Matrix Fraction Description
MIMO Multi-Input, Multi-Output
MISO Multi-Input, Single-Output
ML Maximum Likelihood
MPC Model Predictive Control
NEVN Normalised Error Variance Norm
NLPV Non-Linear Parameter Varying
NMSS Non-Minimal State Space
NSR Noise–Signal Ratio
NVR Noise Variance Ratio
PACF Partial AutoCorrelation Function
PBH Popov, Belevitch and Hautus
PEM Prediction Error Minimisation
PI Proportional-Integral
PID Proportional-Integral-Derivative
PIP Proportional-Integral-Plus
PRBS Pseudo Random Binary Signal
RBF Radial Basis Function
RIV Refined Instrumental Variable
RIVAR Refined Instrumental Variable with Auto-Regressive noise
RIVBJ Refined Instrumental Variable for Box–Jenkins models
RIVCBJ Refined Instrumental Variable for hybrid Continuous-time Box–Jenkins models
RLS Recursive Least Squares
RML Recursive Maximum Likelihood
RW Random Walk
RWP Rectangular-Weighting-into-the-Past
SD Standard Deviation
SDARX State-Dependent Auto-Regressive eXogenous variables
SDP State-Dependent Parameter
SE Standard Error
SISO Single-Input, Single-Output
SP Smith Predictor
SRIV Simplified Refined Instrumental Variable
SRIVC Simplified Refined Instrumental Variable for hybrid Continuous-time models
SRW Smoothed Random Walk
List of Acronyms xvii

SVF State Variable Feedback

TDC True Digital Control
TF Transfer Function
TFM Transfer Function Matrix
TVP Time Variable Parameter
YIC Young Information Criterion
List of Examples, Theorems and
Estimation Algorithms
Examples
2.1 Transfer Function Representation of a First Order System 19
2.2 Transfer Function Representation of a Third Order System 21
2.3 Poles, Zeros and Stability 25
2.4 Proportional Control of a First Order TF Model 28
2.5 Integral Control of a First Order TF Model 30
2.6 Proportional-Integral Control of a First Order TF Model 31
2.7 Pole Assignment Design Based on PI Control Structure 33
2.8 Limitation of PI Control Structure 35
2.9 Continuous- and Discrete-Time Rainfall–Flow Models 36
3.1 State Space Forms for a Third Order TF Model 42
3.2 State Variable Feedback based on the Controllable Canonical Form 46
3.3 State Variable Feedback Pole Assignment based on the Controllable
Canonical Form 48
3.4 State Variable Feedback based on the Observable Canonical Form 51
3.5 Determining the TF from a State Space Model 54
3.6 Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors of a State Space Model 56
3.7 Determining the Diagonal Form of a State Space Model 58
3.8 Rank Tests for a State Space Model 60
4.1 Non-Minimal State Space Representation of a Second Order TF Model 67
4.2 Ranks Test for the NMSS Model 69
4.3 Regulator Control Law for a NMSS Model with Four State Variables 70
4.4 Pole Assignment for the Fourth Order NMSS Regulator 72
4.5 Unity Gain NMSS Regulator for the Wind Turbine Simulation 73
4.6 Mismatch and Disturbances for the Fourth Order NMSS Regulator 75
4.7 Transformations between Minimal and Non-Minimal 80
4.8 The Order of the Closed-loop Characteristic Polynomial 81
4.9 Numerical Comparison between NMSS and Minimal SVF Controllers 83
4.10 Model Mismatch and its effect on Robustness 84
5.1 Proportional-Integral-Plus Control of a First Order TF Model 90
5.2 Implementation Results for Laboratory Excavator Bucket Position 91
xx List of Examples, Theorems and Estimation Algorithms

5.3 Non-Minimal State Space Servomechanism Representation of a Second Order

TF Model 96
5.4 Rank Test for the NMSS Model 97
5.5 Proportional-Integral-Plus Control System Design for NMSS Model with Five
State Variables 100
5.6 Pole Assignment Design for the NMSS Model with Five State Variables 106
5.7 Implementation Results for FACE system with Disturbances 108
5.8 PIP-LQ Design for the NMSS Model with Five State Variables 114
5.9 PIP-LQ Control of CO2 in Carbon-12 Tracer Experiments 117
6.1 Simulation Response for Feedback and Forward Path PIP Control 128
6.2 Simulation Experiment with Integral ‘Wind-Up’ Problems 133
6.3 Incremental Form for Carbon-12 Tracer Experiments 134
6.4 SP-PIP Control of Carbon-12 Tracer Experiments 140
6.5 SP-PIP Control of Non-Minimum Phase Oscillator 141
6.6 Kalman Filter Design for Noise Attenuation 147
6.7 Command Input Anticipation Design Example 156
6.8 Generalised Predictive Control and Command Anticipation PIP Control
System Design 161
7.1 Multivariable TF Representation of a Two-Input, Two-Output System 168
7.2 Multivariable PIP-LQ control of a Two-Input, Two-Output System 178
7.3 Multivariable PIP-LQ control of an Unstable System 179
7.4 Multivariable PIP-LQ Control of a Coupled Drive System 183
7.5 PIP-LQ control of the Shell Heavy Oil Fractionator Simulation 188
7.6 Pole Assignment Decoupling of a Two-Input, Two-Output System 194
8.1 Estimation of a Simple ARX Model 206
8.2 Estimation of a Simple TF Model 208
8.3 Estimation of a Simple FIR Model 211
8.4 Poles and Zeros of the Estimated ARX [3 3 1] Model 211
8.5 SRIV Estimation of a Simple TF model 226
8.6 A Full RIVBJ Example 228
8.7 A More Difficult Example (Young 2008) 229
8.8 Hair-Dryer Experimental Data 235
8.9 Axial Fan Ventilation Rate 240
8.10 Laboratory Excavator Bucket Position 241
8.11 Multivariable System with a Common Denominator 244
8.12 Multivariable System with Different Denominators 246
8.13 Continuous-Time Estimation of Hair-Dryer Experimental Data 251
8.14 Control of CO2 in Carbon-12 Tracer Experiments 257
9.1 Proportional-Integral-Plus Design for a Non-Minimum Phase Double Integrator
System 273
9.2 Simulation Experiments for Non-Minimum Phase Double Integrator 275
9.3 Estimation of a Simulated DARX Model 287
9.4 State-Dependent Parameter Representation of the Logistic Growth Equation 291
9.5 SDP-PIP Control of the Logistic Growth Equation 295
List of Examples, Theorems and Estimation Algorithms xxi

Theorems
4.1 Controllability of the NMSS Representation 69
4.2 Transformation from Non-Minimal to Minimal State Vector 77
5.1 Controllability of the NMSS Servomechanism Model 96
5.2 Pole Assignability of the PIP Controller 105
6.1 Relationship between PIP and SP-PIP Control Gains 139
6.2 Equivalence Between GPC and (Constrained) PIP-LQ 160
7.1 Controllability of the Multivariable NMSS Model 174
9.1 Controllability of the δ-operator NMSS Model 269
The Theorem of D.A. Pierce (1972) 327

Estimation Algorithms
Ie en bloc Least Squares 203
I Recursive Least Squares (RLS) 205
IIe en bloc Instrumental Variables (IV) 216
II Recursive IV 217
IIIe en bloc Refined Instrumental Variables (RIV) 223
III Recursive RIV 223
IIIs Symmetric RIV 225
1
Introduction

Until the 1960s, most research on model identification and control system design was con-
centrated on continuous-time (or analogue) systems represented by a set of linear differential
equations. Subsequently, major developments in discrete-time model identification, coupled
with the extraordinary rise in importance of the digital computer, led to an explosion of research
on discrete-time, sampled data systems. In this case, a ‘real-world’ continuous-time system
is controlled or ‘regulated’ using a digital computer, by sampling the continuous-time output,
normally at regular sampling intervals, in order to obtain a discrete-time signal for sampled
data analysis, modelling and Direct Digital Control (DDC). While adaptive control systems,
based directly on such discrete-time models, are now relatively common, many practical con-
trol systems still rely on the ubiquitous ‘two-term’, Proportional-Integral (PI) or ‘three-term’,
Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers, with their predominantly continuous-time
heritage. And when such systems, or their more complex relatives, are designed offline, rather
than ‘tuned’ online, the design procedure is often based on traditional continuous-time con-
cepts. The resultant control algorithm is then, rather artificially, ‘digitised’ into an approximate
digital form prior to implementation.
But does this ‘hybrid’ approach to control system design really make sense? Would it
not be both more intellectually satisfying and practically advantageous to evolve a unified,
truly digital approach, which would allow for the full exploitation of discrete-time theory and
digital implementation? In this book, we promote such a philosophy, which we term True
Digital Control (TDC), following from our initial development of the concept in the early
1990s (e.g. Young et al. 1991), as well as its further development and application (e.g. Taylor
et al. 1996a) since then. TDC encompasses the entire design process, from data collection,
data-based model identification and parameter estimation, through to control system design,
robustness evaluation and implementation. The TDC approach rejects the idea that a digital
control system should be initially designed in continuous-time terms. Rather it suggests that
the control systems analyst should consider the design from a digital, sampled-data standpoint
throughout. Of course this does not mean that a continuous-time model plays no part in TDC
design. We believe that an underlying and often physically meaningful continuous-time model
should still play a part in the TDC system synthesis. The designer needs to be assured that the

True Digital Control: Statistical Modelling and Non-Minimal State Space Design, First Edition.
C. James Taylor, Peter C. Young and Arun Chotai.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2 True Digital Control

discrete-time model provides a relevant description of the continuous-time system dynamics

and that the sampling interval is appropriate for control system design purposes. For this
reason, the TDC design procedure includes the data-based identification and estimation of
continuous-time models.
One of the key methodological tools for TDC system design is the idea of a Non-Minimal
State Space (NMSS) form. Indeed, throughout this book, the NMSS concept is utilised as
a unifying framework for generalised digital control system design, with the associated
Proportional-Integral-Plus (PIP) control structure providing the basis for the implementa-
tion of the designs that emanate from NMSS models. The generic foundations of linear state
space control theory that are laid down in early chapters, with NMSS design as the central
worked example, are utilised subsequently to provide a wide ranging introduction to other
selected topics in modern control theory.
We also consider the subject of stochastic system identification, i.e. the estimation of control
models suitable for NMSS design from noisy measured input–output data. Although the cov-
erage of both system identification and control design in this unified manner is rather unusual
in a book such as this, we feel it is essential in order to fully satisfy the TDC design philos-
ophy, as outlined later in this chapter. Furthermore, there are valuable connections between
these disciplines: for example, in identifying a parametrically efficient (or parsimonious)
‘dominant mode’ model of the kind required for control system design; and in quantify-
ing the uncertainty associated with the estimated model for use in closed-loop stochastic
uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, based on procedures such as Monte Carlo Simulation
(MCS) analysis.
This introductory chapter reviews some of the standard terminology and concepts in auto-
matic control, as well as the historical context in which the TDC methodology described in
the present book was developed. Naturally, subjects of particular importance to TDC design
are considered in much more detail later and the main aim here is to provide the reader with
a selective and necessarily brief overview of the control engineering discipline (sections 1.1
and 1.2), before introducing some of the basic concepts behind the NMSS form (section 1.3)
and TDC design (section 1.4). This is followed by an outline of the book (section 1.5) and
concluding remarks (section 1.6).

1.1 Control Engineering and Control Theory

Control engineering is the science of altering the dynamic behaviour of a physical process
in some desired way (Franklin et al. 2006). The scale of the process (or system) in question
may vary from a single component, such as a mass flow valve, through to an industrial
plant or a power station. Modern examples include aircraft flight control systems, car engine
management systems, autonomous robots and even the design of strategies to control carbon
emissions into the atmosphere. The control systems shown in Figure 1.1 highlight essential
terminology and will be referred to over the following few pages.
This book considers the development of digital systems that control the output variables
of a system, denoted by a vector y in Figure 1.1, which are typically positions or levels,
velocities, pressures, torques, temperatures, concentrations, flow rates and other measured
variables. This is achieved by the design of an online control algorithm (i.e. a set of rules
or mathematical equations) that updates the control input variables, denoted by a vector u in
Introduction 3

yd u y
Controller System
Commands Inputs Outputs
(a) Open-loop control system

yd u y
Controller System
Commands Inputs Outputs

(b) Closed-loop (feedback) control system

yd u y
Controller System
Commands Inputs Outputs

x̂
State Estimator

(c) Closed-loop (feedback) control system with state estimation

Figure 1.1 Three types of control system

Figure 1.1, automatically and without human intervention, in order to achieve some defined
control objectives. These control inputs are so named because they can directly change the
behaviour of the system. Indeed, for modelling purposes, the engineering system under study
is defined by these input and output variables, and the assumed causal dynamic relationships
between them. In practice, the control inputs usually represent a source of energy in the form
of electric current, hydraulic fluid or pneumatic pressure, and so on. In the case of an aircraft,
for example, the control inputs will lead to movement of the ailerons, elevators and fin, in
order to manipulate the attitude of the aircraft during its flight mission. Finally, the command
input variables, denoted by a vector yd in Figure 1.1, define the problem dependent ‘desired’
behaviour of the system: namely, the nature of the short term pitch, roll and yaw of an aircraft
in the local reference frame; and its longer term behaviour, such as the gradual descent of an
aircraft onto the runway, represented by a time-varying altitude trajectory.
Control engineers design the ‘Controller’ in Figure 1.1 on the basis of control system design
theory. This is normally concerned with the mathematical analysis of dynamical systems using
various analytical techniques, often including some form of optimisation over time. In this latter
context, there is a close connection between control theory and the mathematical discipline of
optimisation. In general terms, the elements needed to define a control optimisation problem
are knowledge of: (i) the dynamics of the process; (ii) the system variables that are observable
at a given time; and (iii) an optimisation criterion of some type.
A well-known general approach to the optimal control of dynamic systems is ‘dynamic
programming’ evolved by Richard Bellman (1957). The solution of the associated Hamilton–
Jacobi–Bellman equation is often very difficult or impossible for nonlinear systems but it is
feasible in the case of linear systems optimised in relation to quadratic cost functions with
quadratic constraints (see later and Appendix A, section A.9), where the solution is a ‘linear
feedback control’ law (see e.g. Bryson and Ho 1969). The best-known approaches of this type
Other documents randomly have
different content
reader a mental photograph of the scene or action or thought which
inspired the work, but to touch the reader's emotions, to stimulate
his imagination by and through itself alone. Neither the observer of
the landscape nor the reader of the poem is asked to look outside of
the work itself for an explanation of its mood. The picture and the
poem fully explain themselves. They lay before the mind both cause
and effect.
This music cannot do. Long ago it was called the language of
emotion, and the embodiment of feeling is its highest province. Even
in the opera, with the assistance of text and action, music should not
strive to go further than this. Its office is to voice the emotions
which lie behind action and speech, to raise to the tenth power
those simpler and more limited inflections and tones of the voice
which are used in the spoken drama. In the great instrumental song
without words it is again moods and emotions that music must
proclaim. Mr. Strauss may tell us that in "Also sprach Zarathustra" he
did not attempt to do the things which makers of programme
explanations accused him of doing, but merely to put before us, in
music, the simple process of the religious and scientific development
of the human race up to the conception of the Beyond-Man.
How easy it all is, to be sure, and how stupidly devoid of imagination
we must all be who fail to read it clearly in the music! If we fail to
find it, it is our fault. Lichtenberg, a witty German, said, "If a
monkey look into a mirror, no Apostle will look out."
We may save ourselves much time and intellectual labor if we listen
carefully to "Also sprach Zarathustra." Dr. Draper packed a history of
the intellectual development of Europe into two substantial volumes
which a thoughtful man may read in a winter; yet he may hear not
only the intellectual, but also the religious development of the entire
human race in Mr. Strauss's tone poem in about thirty minutes. A
benefactor of mankind indeed is this philanthropist, who has not
sought to write philosophical music. He has invented for us a kind of
sugar-coated knowledge tablet. Abolish dry books and listen to the
tone poems of Richard Strauss, and you will have the wisdom of the
ages poured into your ears by trumpets and trombones.
And yet how refreshing to the spirit it is to hear after a Strauss tone
preachment some such work of pure feeling as Schumann's Spring
symphony! Here is no fugued fuddle of the fulminations of science.
Here is no heart-wrung cry of a philosopher from the mountain top,
come down to set whole the disjointed times and wailing because
the populace thinks him a goatherd. Here is no dissector of sated
souls, no juggler with death rattles, no miser of a hope-drained race.
Here is one who served and suffered for the sake of love's infinite
joy, who has trod the valley of the shadow and come to the sunlit
plateau of his heart's desire, and who, as he lifts his brow to the
radiance of the new day, strikes his lyre and bursts into a pæan of
rapture. His music glows and throbs with feeling, for it is feeling
grown too great for the inflection of common speech and so hymned
to us by the myriad-voiced orchestra in one beautiful anthem of the
budding of eternal spring in the heart of a man. That is programme
music which needs no explanatory notes.

"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in thy flight!

Make me a child again just for to-night."

How often shall we who are treading the downward slopes of life
croon that old couplet and yearn for the cradle songs of Schubert
and Beethoven? How often, too, we wonder, will a weary world turn
back with weary brain from the sordid task of transfretating "the
Sequane at the dilucul and crepuscul" with Strauss and his tribe to
the poets of the dawn who smote the great primeval chords of
human feeling? This we may not now answer, for orchestral music is
yet in her infancy and it is possible that the period of to-day is but
the disturbance of a transition.
 IV.—STRAUSS AND THE SONG WRITERS
He hath songs, for man or woman, of all sizes.

A Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 3.

In the domain of the song new developments have come forward

with startling rapidity in recent years. Every student of musical
history is familiar with the growth of what is called the art song. The
folk song was a simple form, in which a good, round tune, once
made, served for every stanza. The early composers of songs were
content to adhere to this form, which had its musical claim for
supremacy, just as the Italian opera had.
But after a time the imperious demand of text for appropriate
embodiment compelled a departure from the old manner. Mozart set
a pretty fashion when he composed "Das Veilchen" and altered the
germinal thematic idea, by a process similar to symphonic
development, to meet the varying sentiment of the verse. But not
much was accomplished till the birth of the so-called romantic
movement. This was really nothing more than the victory of a
principle, which had for centuries been striving for dominion, and it
led the world to enthusiastic adoration of the songs of Schubert and
the operas of Weber.
Then began the reign of what the Germans call the
"durchcomponirtes lied," literally the "through-composed song." This
is the song in which the music faithfully follows the text and changes
in melodic externals and in harmonic plan to express sentiment.
Schubert's "Erl-König" is a perfect specimen of this kind of song. Of
course the writing of songs in the old strophical form did not cease.
Why should it? There were still plenty of texts which lent themselves
readily to that kind of setting, and if popularity be sought, there is
nothing like a fixed melodic idea.
Gradually, however, those composers who seek always to dwell in a
rarefied atmosphere, who are nothing if not "utter," and who
ceaselessly endeavor to make poor Music a mere handmaid of all the
other arts, have driven the "durchcomponirtes lied" to the verge of
incoherence. The musical idea has become almost intangible, and all
that seems to be left is a vague dispensation of tonalities and
recitativo. For some sanity in this method of writing we have to
thank the arch speculator of Munich, Richard Strauss. Whatever may
be the ultimate outcome of the dispute over his orchestral riddles,
there need be no hesitation in pronouncing him a master of the
modern manner of song writing.
Mr. Strauss's songs belong of a surety to the domain of the ultra-
romantic. There is little of the old-fashioned German lied in them. It
might be possible to trace their descent from the folksong of
Germany, and occasionally one appears in the genuine
"volksthümlisches lied"[1] style. But many generations of artistic
development separate these songs from their progenitors. The
strophic form has quite disappeared in most of them. They are in the
widest sense composed through. The germinal thematic idea is but a
root from which the song grows. It barely sets a style and a
direction for the whole. But it must not be supposed that these
songs are in any sense formless.
They have an individual symmetry of form. It is a variety of the form
of the romantic school, which is built entirely upon the emotional
plan underlying the music. The musical scheme, therefore, consists
of a proposition which is worked out by a method of transition, so
that new material springs from the original thematic germ, and we
arrive at novel and striking conclusions. Of melodic shape in the old
sense some of these songs have almost nothing. But they are none
the less luxuriously melodious. Their melodic nature differs from that
of a Schubert song as the melodic nature of a Wagner drama does
from that of a Weber opera. This does not mean that they are better
songs than Schubert's. There are no other songs as fine as those of
the fecund Franz Peter. But music is making progress, and the
methods of song writing will probably change as fast as those of
operatic and orchestral composition. Art is ever disinclined to stand
still.
The harmonic basis of the Strauss songs is the principal cause of
their melodic luxuriance. Strauss harmonizes wholly for what the
Germans call the "stimmung." We have no word which exactly
reproduces the meaning of this one; but let us call it the voicing of
the mood. Strauss's harmony is designed to make an atmosphere in
which his melody floats. At the same time this atmosphere is to
envelop the hearer and saturate him with the feeling of the song.
The high organism of this plan of attack upon the listener stamps it
as the refined product of modern, thoroughly sophisticated art.
It is very trying on the singer. Some of Dr. Strauss's voice-parts,
planned, not as the ultimate object in view, but wholly as a part of a
general scheme, are cruelly difficult. In range alone they make
searching demands upon the vocal resources. In the department of
mental conception of tone—the highest field of vocal technic—they
are as evasive as some of the tonal illusions of Wagner. But they are
not unsingable. On the contrary, once let the singer thoroughly
permeate himself with the harmonic atmosphere, and thus attune
himself to the "stimmung" of the song, and his troubles reduce
themselves to the common problems of production and coloring of
tone, which have nothing more to do with the nature of Dr. Strauss's
songs than with those of all other artistic composers.
It is essential to the success of songs of this kind that the
declamation be arranged with much skill, otherwise that pregnant
significance which is to come of a perfect marriage of sound and
sense will be missing. In this department of his technical labor Dr.
Strauss shows much ingenuity in most of his songs. Sometimes the
text is dramatized in a manner quite masterly. In the entire range of
song literature one would search far to find anything more subtle or
potent than the opening of "Hoffen und wieder verzagen." This is a
piece of dramatic declamation written in the modern recitative idiom
and as distant as possible from the pure lied style; but it is intensely
dramatic.
Accompaniments this composer writes with skill. They are sufficiently
independent without at any time dominating the song, while in their
employment of details they assist greatly in creating the mood. The
result of the combination of the best traits found in these songs is a
striking power of exposition, a convincing formation of the
"stimmung." When upon a well-established mood Strauss builds
climaxes such as those of "Wie solten wir geheim sie halten,"
"Heimliche Aufforderung," and "Caecile," the effect is moving. When
he desires to offer a touch of that humor which lies close to tears,
he can do it, as witness that little masterpiece "Ach weh mir
unglückhaftem Mann."
Yet with all the beauties of the Strauss songs there are some
weaknesses that must not be denied. A cycle of these songs will not
maintain its charm from beginning to end as will Schumann's
"Dichterliebe," or Schubert's "Müllerlider." The earlier song masters,
to be, sure, had the advantage of a more fertile soil. They had fresh
fields and pastures new. And they belonged to a school of
composers whose very first claim to distinction was their fecundity of
melodic invention.
The Strauss songs are not primarily melodic. Neither are any of the
high art songs of our time. All our song masters are marching
steadily out into the vague and mystic land of moonlight moods and
shifting shadows of tonalities. The strict song form irks them. They
cease not to twist their phrases so that these may not coincide with
the lines of the stanza. They are stung with the virus of the
Wagnerian method. They make melody in fragments.
Now it is no easy matter to write one vague, semi-mystic, intangibly
harmonized mood picture after another, eschewing clearly marked
melodic and rhythmic outlines, and at the same time to avoid
monotony. Dr. Strauss's songs, let us confess it, often seem
monotonous when half a dozen of them are sung in a row. It
requires a nice skill in selection to escape this. It can be escaped, for
the composer has been prolific and he has written some good things
in the pure lied style, which may be alternated with the others. But
the presence of this element of monotony is worth considering,
because it is a manifestation of a difficulty into which the present
manner of song writing is leading composers. Perhaps all the good
tunes have been written!
Melodic invention is a vital element in the making of songs. There
must be a thematic subject. No matter how far into the realm of
detailed declamation the composer may elect to go, he may not
wholly neglect the musical figure. If he does, he writes not song, but
recitative. The fundamental difference between lyric declamation
and pure recitative lies in the presence of the musical figure in the
former, and the musical figure is the root of melody. It is the motive,
the rhythmic and melodic germ.
If now we turn from the songs of Richard Strauss to those of the
much-lauded Hugo Wolf, we shall find that there is a difference in
this very matter. Wolf's melodic ideas are singularly vague and
deficient in directness of character. They do not come clean out upon
the ear as the proclamation of a master's embodiment of a poetic
thought; neither do they set a character or fix a mood. They easily
lose themselves in the speculative convolutions of that philosophic
declamation which is the peculiar fruit of contemporaneous
cultivation in the field of song. Intervallic difficulties abound in these
Wolf songs, and the harmonic basis is so strained at times that the
ear is outraged by the withholding of the normal resolutions of the
chords.
But these things are part and parcel of the musical affectation of the
time. Possibly twenty years hence these wrestings of musical nature
will have become sweetened by the uses of adversity, and the ears
of the very children will accept them as freely as they now do the
lush harmonies of "Träume" and "Im Treibhaus."
Wolf's artistic endeavor in song writing is clearly the same as that of
Richard Strauss, but the achievement is far different. To throw songs
by the two composers into close juxtaposition as is frequently done
in recitals is to inflict a needlessly cruel punishment on Wolf. To
interject into the programme one of the uncommon songs of
Schubert, such as "Dem Unendlichen," is still more cruel, for this
serves to show that the melodious Franz Peter could pen philosophic
apostrophe and oratoric declamation with the best of the moderns,
and yet remain more musical than any of them.
Strauss, be it said to his credit, never omits the proposition of some
sort of a musical theme. But his method is not that of the elder lyric
school. He is a romanticist of the ultra-modern type, and carves out
his musical forms over the pattern of his text with infinite labor. He
lays down a theme which sets a character and indicates a point of
aim; and then he develops, as I have already noted, by the method
of transition, so that new material springs from the old in our very
sight as the eastern conjurer's flowers grow from the bare earth.
Wolf works on similar lines. He is not a conscious imitator, but his
method is the Strauss method, the method of Schubert's "Delphine"
buried under the twentieth-century manner. But Wolf lacks both the
directness of Schubert and the ingenuity of Strauss. His work in
many places rings false. It smells too often of the midnight forge
and the hammer of the driven quill. Schubert's song bursts from him
full grown, like Minerva from the head of Jove. Strauss's songs show
reflection and aspiration and loving care in their finish. Wolf's echo
with the sound of the workshop. They are by no means journeyman
work, but they are hewn out with hard labor and they do not give
forth the fragrance of utter spontaneity.
Questions will naturally arise as to the power of these songs to stand
comparison with the lyrics of the later Frenchmen. Reynaldo Hahn,
for example, also toys with the rarefied method, and paints delicate
impressionistic tone pictures. These are not ordinary songs, but they
will not bear the chilling spaces of the concert room. They are for
the salon, for the intimate communication of one at the piano to
another sitting beside it.
With a cigarette, a glass of Madeira (very mellow), lights half down,
as stage directions say, and a woman with whom you are not too
much in love singing to you in the point-lace wilderness, the songs
of Reynaldo Hahn will make of you an Omar Khayyam transformed
into what Mr. Kipling calls "a demnition product." If the woman is
beautiful, the Madeira soothing, and the cigarette mild, you will be
ready to swear that Hahn is the Schubert of the Boulevards. But if
some one sings Hahn to you as No. 4 on an afternoon programme in
a rectangular recital hall, you will vote the dainty French writer the
essence of puerility.
Another of these very precious gentlemen who has come into notice
is Alexandre Georges. Did you ever chance to hear his "Chansons de
Miarka," settings of texts of Jean Richepin's "Miarka, the Bear's
Foundling"? They are worth a hearing. The poems—consider such
titles as "Nuages," "La Poussière," "La Pluie," "La Parole"—are mood
pictures and invite musical treatment. The composer has done well
with them. He has done nothing new, to be sure, but he has made
himself comfortable in the well-kept museum of the obvious. He has
trotted in old-fashioned rhythm with the Romany, and he has rained
a glittering torrent of sixteenth notes along the upper steppes of the
keyboard.
But what can we ask? A Frenchman must not be disrespectful of the
vogue. These songs have atmosphere, and if it is painted in familiar
and safe tints, who shall blame a man for assuring himself of correct
methods? The declamation is generally clear and fluent, and the
moods of the poems are reproduced in the music with propriety and
elegance.
But this is wandering. The point to be made—not a very important
one, perhaps—is that all these moderns, with Strauss, their best
man, in the lead, are experimenting. They are testing the power of
lyric composition to do without the poetic basis of metre. Without
metre they are compelled to develop their melodies by a new
process, and they seem likely to fall into the error of losing definite
musical figuration altogether. They declaim and recite. Their
accompaniments are miniature symphonic descriptions. Yet it has all
been done before. The two Schubert songs already named, and "Die
Allmacht" ought to show these gentlemen how to do what they
seem to be trying so hard to do without quite accomplishing their
ends.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] The volksthümlisches lied is a variety of song written by
artistic composers on a plan suggested by the folk song. It is the
folk song placed under cultivation.
 AUX ITALIENS

I.—ITALIAN OPERA OF TO-DAY

What do ye singing? What is this ye sing?

Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon.

Several factors have united in causing a new interest in the opera of

Italy. In so far as New York is concerned the singing together of two
such admirable exponents of the art of bel canto as Mme. Marcella
Sembrich and Enrico Caruso has restored to life some of the older
works, while a recent visit of Mascagni and the frequent
performances of Puccini's "La Bohème" and "Tosca" have directed
serious attention to the tendency of the younger art. The struggles
of the youthful school to maintain its national characteristics in the
face of its own yearnings after the flesh-pots of Wagnerism have
afforded an absorbing spectacle for observers of musical progress.
The leader and master of all these young eagles was, of course, the
incomparable Verdi, the most characteristic composer of opera Italy
ever brought forth. But although he showed them all precisely how
to mingle the fruits of the new fields opened by Wagner with those
of the old Italian soil, they have not always wisely accepted his
instruction. They have sought for independence in manner, and in
some instances with disheartening results. But perhaps a cursory
review of some of their achievements may not be in vain.
Doubtless the casual observer will be struck first by the
instrumentation of these modern Italians. Puccini's scores certainly
offer abundant food for study, and his clever adjustment of the
leading motive scheme to the instrumental background of a
thoroughly Italian vocal melody, as in "Tosca," is an accomplishment
not to be passed by with a smile. If we compare the scores of such
works as those of Puccini and Mascagni with the works of the
Donizetti period, we note with astonishment the immense strides
made in the use of the orchestra.
But we must not be deceived. The Donizettian period was one of
reaction. The Gluck-Piccini battle had not long since been fought out
in Paris, and the principles of dramatic verity in opera had once more
been vindicated, but at the cost of a great public weariness. The
classic polish and repose of Gluck's music were intellectually
satisfying, but his scores lacked the vital heat to keep warm the
blood of the artistically indolent. To this day the best works of Gluck
invite our admiration, but seldom awaken our feelings. The idle,
pleasure-seeking public of Europe soon turned again to its
strumming ditties. It threw itself at the feet of Rossini, and within
forty years after the establishment of Gluck's superiority in Paris the
whole Continent was beating time to "Di tanti palpiti."
Once more the Voice was the deity of the operatic stage, and woe
betide the composer who so wrote for his orchestra as to interfere
with its supremacy. Rossini, who had artistic aspirations in spite of all
his insincerity and intellectual laziness, made many improvements in
operatic writing. It was he who first omitted from an opera all use of
the old-fashioned dry recitative and used throughout that which has
the support of the orchestra. He enriched the manner of writing for
horns and clarinets, and he introduced instrumental effects which
later composers have adopted with good effect. But, nevertheless,
"William Tell" was a failure, and Rossini sulked in his tent for thirty
years, while Bellini and Donizetti turned out their nursery operas, in
which the orchestra has been likened to a "big guitar."
The advance in orchestral writing in opera after this time is often
erroneously attributed wholly to Wagner, but undoubtedly it is the
king of all musical charlatans, Meyerbeer, who should have the lion's
share of the honor. When Wagner was a young, struggling, and
utterly unknown composer, seeking for an opening in Paris, he threw
himself at the feet of Meyerbeer, who was the idol of both the
French and the Prussian capitals. Meyerbeer's operas were already
known throughout Europe, and to their cheap and tawdry orchestral
effects the later composers no doubt owed the suggestion that with
the orchestra much might be said that could not be given to the
voices. Subsequently the leaven of Wagnerism permeated European
musical art, but the despised Meyerbeer undoubtedly pointed out to
many writers the path which led back toward the true source of
Italian operatic composition.
For in the beginning of opera, Monteverde experimented with
orchestral effects, chiefly descriptive, to be sure, but indicating what
might be done. Lully afterward developed some ideas as to dramatic
expression in the instrumental score, and these were further
expanded by Gluck. The progress along this path was checked
temporarily by the reaction in favor of cheap tunes for the display of
voices. Verdi took up the development of the orchestral part of
Italian opera where Rossini left off, and in his early works wrote in a
style that bears more than a family resemblance to that of "William
Tell." But Verdi was a man of broad vision, an assimilator of
universal ideas, and he was not slow to recognize the drift of
operatic art. He discerned the rising importance of the orchestral
score and realized the full value of the instrumental adjunct. In
"Aïda" he utilized to their utmost capacity its resources in coloring
and in "Otello" he placed in the orchestra some of the most
important and significant passages of his music,—passages which
went further than anything in the setting of the text itself toward the
complete explication of the emotions working in the drama. In
"Falstaff" he used the orchestra as a commentator on the humor of
every situation, and even succeeded in making it aid in the
interpretation of Falstaff's ridiculous philosophy.
One has only to hearken for a minute to Mascagni's use of the
basses in "Cavalleria Rusticana" to recognize the source of his
knowledge. "Otello," with its wonderful bass recitative in the murder
scene, was produced in 1887; "Cavalleria Rusticana" was brought
out in 1890. Mascagni's dramatic treatment of the orchestral part of
the lyric drama is no mere imitation, however; it is a part of the
general movement in Italian opera which began with Verdi's "Aïda"
and which may without difficulty be traced back through Boito's
"Mefistofele" (of which the first version was produced in 1868) to
Rossini's "William Tell." The advance was akin to that made in all
species of music. The first experiments were in the direction of
description by means of imitative figuration. These are what we find
in "Tell." The allotment to the orchestra of the emotional background
of the drama was bound to come later, in the natural order of things.
Mascagni stands in the direct line of progress in this matter, and his
contribution to the general results is, though small, nevertheless
worthy of remark.
How much he and Leoncavallo and Puccini owe to Ponchielli would
be hard to determine. The composer of "La Gioconda" was
somewhat ahead of his time, and his work was not fairly understood
when it was new. But in one feature of operatic composition
suggested by this work all the later composers seem inclined to go
too far. They are striving to follow Verdi in his earnest attempt to set
every phrase of the text of "Otello" to music perfectly adapted to the
expression of its meaning. But Verdi avoided the fatal error into
which these young Italians are falling. He never went so far as to
obliterate from his scores all trace of melodic character.
If one were to take a dozen or twenty pages of "Tosca," "Pagliacci,"
"Iris," and "Zanetto," shuffle them together and then play them, it
would be almost impossible for any ordinary lover of music to
distinguish the writing of one composer from that of another.
"Zanetto" sounds as much like Puccini as like Mascagni, and the
composer of "Iris" might have written almost any page of "La
Bohème." This work, however, bears the same relation to Puccini's
other works as "Cavalleria Rusticana" does to the other operas of
Mascagni. It is well supplied with clearly formed melodies. That is
the real reason of the wide popularity of "Cavalleria Rusticana."
Rarely sinking below the level of passionate expression demanded
by the intense tragedy of the story, it is always purely lyric, and its
melodies stamp themselves upon the memory.
The other works for the most part seem to wander along in endless
stretches of melodious phrases, which have no closely organized
relation to each other. They sound well, for these Italians have the
trick of writing well for the singer. But they are open confessions of a
fear of becoming tuneful in the old Italian style of Donizetti and
Rossini. These young men seem to be constantly on the verge of
writing in the aria form and of avoiding it only by thrusting in some
unnatural modulation or some unexpected cadence. They seem to
be striving for an endless melody, like Wagner's, which is not
congenial to them. They forget that when the emotional conditions
of the scene pointed to melodious music Wagner was frankly
melodic, and that he wrote as lyrically as Schubert himself, though
naturally constructing his melodies on a larger frame. Think of the
joyous carol of the Rhine maidens in the water-woven vision of the
first scene of the great trilogy; of the hard-wrung tribute of the
crafty Loge to "Weibes Wonne und Werth"; of the love song of
Siegmund, the duet between him and Sieglinde, the heart-rending
farewell of the stricken god in the last scene; of Siegfried's Titanic
cradle song to his infant sword; of the nightingale twitter of the
forest bird, of the throbbing love duet of the third act of "Siegfried";
of the ebullient duet in the first scene of "Götterdämmerung"; of the
chorus of Gunther's men, of the narrative of Siegfried, and of the
stupendous threnody of Brünnhilde's immolation. Wagner was not
afraid to write songs when he needed them in his art.
It is a grave mistake to sell the Italian birthright of vocal melody for
a mess of orchestral pottage. And it is altogether unnecessary. These
young Italians must let alone their attempts to set reason to music.
Their latest librettos contain too much philosophizing and not
enough passion. Zanetto is altogether too sophisticated to be typical.
Sylvia thinks too much. Osaka in "Iris" is altogether too much a man
of the world. Iris is a human doll. Kyoto is an accomplished
speculator in human folly. These are not figures to be animated with
great music. They forbid its presence. These young Italians must get
back to a realization of the fundamental truth that music is the
speech of emotion. Love, hate, fear, elation, depression, grief,—
these are for music to interpret. But you cannot discuss Christianity
and positivism in lyrics, nor make intelligent comment in six-eight
time on the causes of poverty. The limitations of music are far
smaller even than those of lyric poetry, yet its field is as large as that
of the true drama, for it is that of all human emotion.
Do they need a model? Well, there is one of whom they seemingly
know not. Away back in the years before even Rossini assailed
flaccid Paris with the strenuous peal of "William Tell," a German boy
of seventeen wrote in 1814 a song called "Gretchen am Spinnrade,"
and the following year he cast upon the waters that marvellous
condensed drama "Der Erl-König." In the five minutes of that one
song by Franz Peter Schubert lies the history of a human soul. It is
an epitome of emotion, and the piano does quite as much as the
voice—but not more—in the expression. If the young Italians would
like to learn something more than they already know about the way
to build condensed opera, let them study the songs of Schubert.
There they will find a solution of the problem of how to combine
perfect vocal melody with a dramatic accompaniment without
sacrificing one iota of dramatic verity.
An additional question of high import is whether these young
firebrands are not setting the torch to the roots of nationality in their
art. It is useless for theoreticians to argue that there is no nationality
in music. There is nationality in all art, and the "Virgin" painted by
Rubens is a Flemish woman just as surely as she is Italian when
limned by Michael Angelo. There never was a German who could
have conceived the lilt of "Funiculi, funicula," nor an Italian who
could have composed "Schwesterlein." No Russian could have
penned the dainty "Pierre et sa Mie," nor could a Frenchman have
imagined "Ay Ouchnem." Only an Englishman could have written
"Rule Britannia," of which Wagner said that the first four measures
contained the whole character of the English people.
Nationality shows itself most conspicuously in song. Instrumental
music is at best an artificial species. Its forms, its methods, are
handed from one nation to another, and the Harvard graduate builds
his symphony upon the Viennese model of Papa Haydn. But the
musical idioms of a people cannot be kept out of their songs. The
folk song was ignored successfully for a thousand years, but in
certain happy days of the Middle Ages it wooed and won the fugue,
and modern music, strong with the strength of musical science,
beautiful with the beauty of spontaneous emotional utterance, was
the fruit of this union. But for all time the idiom of the folk song
colored the vocal art. The musical idioms imposed themselves on the
scientific basis, and when a German or a Frenchman or an Italian
composed a song, he composed it with a counterpoint common
through all Europe, but with the melodic idiom of the songs of his
own people.
The Italians of to-day have not wholly forgotten the essentials of
their native melody. Indeed, their composing betrays a deep self-
consciousness. They see the character of their own music and try to
escape it, and it is of this very act that complaint is here made. But
the fundamentals of Italian melody are not entirely lost. The pages
of Puccini's "Manon," "La Bohème," and "Tosca" are not completely
devoid of song which is indisputably Italian. No one would ever
mistake it for French or German. But it is no longer the melody of
Donizetti and Bellini. That is well. The Italian masters of the
beginning of this century wrote tunes for their own sake without
thought of their dramatic expressiveness, and Donizetti did not
hesitate to stop the entire action of his "Lucia" at one of the most
critical points in order that the famous sextet might be sung.
The modern Italians do not fall into that sort of error. They are
striving with all their power to compose dramatically. They are
striving, too, to preserve Italian music, and for this all honor should
be shown them. More than that, they have shown plainly the path
along which Italian music should advance. They have demonstrated
beyond question that the aria, which was the central sun of the old
Neapolitan system of opera, is wholly unessential. They have shown
that the dialogue of the lyric drama can be carried on in a musical
speech which is melodious, but not dominated by musical patterns.
They have illustrated to the full the possibilities of a flexible and
eloquent recitative. They have carried to a high degree of excellence
the art of fitting the musical accent to the word, and the contour of
the phrase to the natural inflection of the speech. This they have
done, too, in the full knowledge that their art in this detail is quite
lost upon the general public and appeals only to a few studious
critics of their music.
They have abolished from the Italian stage the foolish repetitions of
lines of the text as syllables on which to hang cadenzas. They have
wiped out the empty colorature song, designed solely for the
amazement of groundlings and for the glorification of the prima
donna. They have almost terminated the career of the prima donna
herself, and substituted for her, if not the singing actress of Wagner,
at least an acting songstress. They have placed Italian opera beside
French in its honest search after theatric directness. Italian opera is
no longer music and nothing else: it is what its early fathers
intended it should be, drama per musica.
The movement of the young Italians toward dramatic verity, as
already noted, did not originate in a weak surrender to the conquest
of Europe by Wagner. The "Gioconda" of Ponchielli, produced in
1876, shows not a single trace of Wagnerian influence; and yet to
that work as much as to any other are the young Italians indebted.
They have travelled the path on which Ponchielli was moving, but
they have gone much farther than he did. Ponchielli utilized the
orchestral forces with high skill, and his dramatic recitative was far
ahead of that found in Verdi's earlier works. For a second-rate
master he attained extraordinary influence over his successors. Alas!
that suggests that they are even less than second-rate, and it is
quite possible that the near future will decide that they were less
than third-rate. But we of the present must take them as they
appear to us, and endeavor to learn from their works whither
operatic music is tending.
Boito's "Mefistofele," which is as old as 1868, gave these young
Italians much to think of, so much indeed that one can trace a good
deal more than a family resemblance between the introduction of
Mascagni's "Iris" and the prologue in heaven in the Boito work. But
the young men have striven again to make advances. That they
have endeavored to introduce into their music an Italianized
Wagnerism is the fault for which they must be most severely
blamed, for in doing this they have wandered away from true
nationalism and have betrayed their birthright.
It is not possible in a brief essay to point out the details of the
methods of these young men. It may be said, however, that what
they have apparently striven to do is to rear a distorted vocal
structure, composed of the elements of the older Italian singing
style, upon a foundation of acrid, restless, changeful, distressful
harmonies. It may perhaps be injudicious to find fault with them for
this, for no thoughtful observer of musical progress can fail to see
that toward something new and strange in harmonic sequences all
music is advancing. One needs only to think of the French operas of
Bruneau and Charpentier, the piano music of the young Russians,
the vast orchestral tone-riddles of Richard Strauss. If the use of
strictly technical terms may be allowed, the harmony of to-day is no
longer diatonic; it is not even chromatic; it is the harmony of the
minor second. In other words, it is the harmony in which the
sharpest of all dissonances, that of two tones only a semitone apart,
is prevalent. In the presence of this style of harmony the chord of
the diminished seventh becomes as gentle as the tonic triad, for
music is filled with what the eloquent and witty James Huneker once
happily called "diseased chords of the twenty-sixth."
This style of harmony is not natural to Italian music. The genius of
Italian song is utterly opposed to it. The proclivities of the Italian
people are inimical to it. It is not adapted to the methods and
traditions of the Italian lyric drama, and it has not been found
necessary by the writers of the greatest masterpieces of Italian
opera. Verdi and Boito were able to construct their notable works
without it. Mascagni, on the other hand, has forced his music into
this uncongenial way. His "Iris" teems with harsh and discordant
harmonies, and in order to set the melodic voice-parts on this
uneasy basis he has been compelled to twist the melodic curves of
Italian song into unseemly angles.
Now these are facts. Just what they are to signify in the progress of
musical art only a very confident person would venture to predict.
Where is Italian opera? That question we may answer. Whither is it
going? To that we can only hazard a reply. We may, too, be wholly
wrong in supposing that it is an evil day for art when Italian opera
sacrifices anything of its intense nationality for the sake of rivalling
the drastic music-drama of Richard Wagner. Critics are not prophets.
They can only study the conditions of art in their own day, and try to
reconcile them with those standards which the experience of time
has shown to be the highest. As Mr. Webster once intimated, the
only way to judge of the future is by the past. That method points to
the conclusion that nothing good will come of the effort to dethrone
the national genius. On the other hand, this effort looks amazingly
like a confession of weakness.
It looks as if the young Italians were not of fruitful inventiveness in
the production of thematic ideas. All the good tunes have not been
written yet. John Stuart Mill confessed that for a time he was
troubled with a fear that because there were only seven tones in the
scale all the possible melodic ideas were nearly exhausted. But it has
been noted that in spite of the immense drain made on the scale by
Bach and Mozart and Weber and Beethoven and Schubert and
Schumann there were still tunes enough to make a Dvorak, a
Tschaïkowsky, a Brahms, and a Wagner.
 II.—THE CLASSIC OF THE UNPROGRESSIVE
But how may he find Arcady
Who hath nor youth nor melody?

H. C. Bunner, The Way to Arcady.

In these tumultuous times of Strauss and Wagner, with the furies of

intellectual realism pursuing us and the sirens of seductive
emotionalism panting before us, the persistence with which
Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" clings to the lyric stage impels us
toward the complacent conclusion that this work is become the
classic of the musically unprogressive. This seems a hazardous
statement, yet it may be shown without undue effort to enjoy a
substantial and definite basis. The names of Racine and Molière, of
Gluck and Lully, rise before the memory when the term "classic" is
employed, but one should also not forget that there are thousands
of well-intentioned persons to whom that is classic which is just far
enough above the level of their ordinary thought to command
respect. To the whistler of operetta jingles all music not to be
whistled is classic. Stendahl said, in making a distinction too often
made arbitrarily: "Romanticism is the art of presenting to people the
literary works which, in the actual state of their habits and beliefs,
are capable of giving them the greatest possible pleasure;
classicism, on the contrary, of presenting them with that which gave
the greatest possible pleasure to their grandfathers."
If this demarcation of Stendahl's be correct, then "Lucia" is twice
blessed in that it is both classic and romantic. For there is no doubt
that it gave much pleasure to our grandfathers, nor is there any
room for suspicion that it is not congenial to a "popular" audience in
the actual state of its habits and beliefs. No doubt, indeed, there is a
sort of gentle romanticism in "Lucia." The personages are of the
class of lords and ladies, and there is something quite imposing in
the strut of their boots and the waving of their feathers. One must
even be impressed by the sight of the noble Scotch maiden
wandering in the forest in a long-trained gown accompanied by a
companion who wears low neck and short sleeves. We realize that
we are in fashionable company, and we prepare for the worst. When
Edgardo marches upon the scene just as Lucia has signed the futile
contract, our expectations are realized, and we gaze upon the
revelation of the secrets of high life with an interest almost as direct
and eloquent as that of the chorus itself. The madness of Lucy,
accompanied by the winsome and ingenuous accents of the flute,
touches us deeply, and when Edgardo, wandering among the tombs
of his sainted fathers, learns that Lucy has ceased to live, and stabs
himself, breathing out his life in that sweet melody (with chorus), "A
te vengo," we are dissolved in tears.
This is romanticism in truth, and unless he be of those who preserve
in middle age the intellectual grasp of childhood, one cannot find in
this work any qualities of the classic beyond its familiarity to our
grandfathers, except in the meaning of the dictum of Sainte-Beuve,
"Les ouvrages anciens ne sont pas classiques parce qu'ils sont vieux,
mais parce qu'ils sont energiques, frais, dispos." Now this last word
is open to misconstruction. It may mean "cheerful" and it may mean
"disposed" or "orderly." In the case of "Lucia" either meaning will
answer, for it is the "energique" rather than the "dispos" that makes
us trouble in the application of the definition of Sainte-Beuve. There
are fuss and fury in the strenuous utterances of the tenor in the
scene of the tearing of the contract, but these can hardly be called
energy in the meaning in which the French author was using the
word. Youthful and cheerful, innocent and ingenuous,—these,
indeed, are adjectives which may well be applied to the masterpiece
of the composer of "Il Castello di Kenilworth" and other operas. For
those who are living in the past of musical art "Lucia" is a classic,
and it is also a living romance. It gave joy to their grandfathers, and
it sends through their own nerves mild thrills, not discomforting, and
not impeded by intellectual problems in tone.
When one comes beyond the "Lucia" period in operatic art, he may
fairly enroll himself in the ranks of those whom Walter Pater calls
"spiritual adventurers,"—those who are ready to put out on unknown
seas of art experience and who are notable for their active mistrust
of the teachings of their grandfathers. Some of these are fools, but
this fact only serves to remind one of a wise saying of that very wise
man, Robert Louis Stevenson: "Shelley was a young fool, and so are
these cock-sparrow revolutionaries. But it is better to be a fool than
to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory
than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and
take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity."
It is seldom that men take things as they come in music in this
"forlorn stupidity," for they set themselves stubbornly against the
new. Yet the attitude of those who sit in amiable comfort at
performances of "Lucia" and who go away saying, "Now that's the
kind of music I like," with a tremendous accent on the "I,"—an
accent which is plainly the thank-offering of the Pharisee,—they are
surely insensible to the jars, if not to the incongruities, of the
modern musical world. And the spiritual adventurers will presently
say to them: "We are at the parting of our ways. Linger you, if you
will, in the valley with your Donizetti and his three-four ditties and
his big guitar. We are for the mountain with Wagner and
Tschaïkowsky and the thunder-storms."
But perchance it may occur to you to question whether they are not
happier in their serene movelessness than those who are continually
scaling heights. There is even some doubt about this, for they
experience occasional twinges of discomfort when they hear of
persons enjoying exclusive satisfaction in such works as "Falstaff" or
"Otello" or "Die Meistersinger," which are to them poppy and
mandragora. But there is something more pitiable than this in their
sad state. That is their inability to enjoy the classics of the musically
progressive.
The man or woman who is not subservient to a factitious taste in
music, who has not habituated the intellectual palate to the
enjoyment of Wagner alone, or of Rossini alone,—he it is whose soul
is enriched by a wider range of impressions. For him no flower of
music blooms in vain. For him there is some very special loveliness in
the operas written before the flood-gates of modern romanticism
were opened. For him there is still edification in the stately measures
of Gluck's "Orfeo," and there is a fountain of inexhaustible pleasure
in the immortal "Don Giovanni" of Mozart. To him the latter, in
particular, is a perennial "Fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro." Ability
to penetrate to the heart of these works is an evidence of musical
aristocracy. They are not for the common herd. The children of
melodic and harmonic darkness are not enlightened by them. They
shine for the few, the chosen few, who march with Music herself as
their leader. To hear "Lucia" after one of these is like drinking iced
water after eating ice-cream. The Donizettian masterpiece becomes
suddenly lukewarm.
It has been said that in art there is no such thing as standing still.
But the appreciation of art is surely a different matter. Music, the
youngest of the arts, is in the very press of her first forward march.
She is in the possession of the priceless gift of unwearied strength.
Her technical resources have not as yet been fully explored. She has
mines of mere matter which have not yet been opened up. Her
future is big with promise. But whatever that future may be, it will
be the direct product of her past. She will never be able to cut the
chains that bind her to Bach any more than poetry can break the
bonds which tie her to David, the son of Jesse. Some of us are prone
to forget this, and to think that we are of the army of progress when
we neglect Bach and Beethoven and the prophets for the preachers
of our own era. But there would have been no Brahms without a
Haydn, and there would have been no Wagner without a Mozart.
It requires an æsthetic immobility unfortunately none too rare to
stand still and enjoy "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "La Sonnambula" in
a period when the whole spirit and outward form of musical art are
tending directly away from them. The fact that so many persons can
do it is but an evidence of what we know to our regret; namely, that
most men and women refuse to take these things seriously. They
hold that the opera is only a form of amusement and that it is
absurd to fall into disputes about it. Art is a pretty word to them; but
if its meaning includes a command that they are to regard their
"amusements" with grave eyes and to exercise the faculties of their
minds upon them, away with it to the realms of outer darkness!
This is not an attitude which history encourages. Men have always
been stern in the defence of their playthings, and they have always
taken their pleasures very seriously. The whole Trojan war was about
a man's passing fancy for a woman. More bitter wars than that have
been waged for the sake of acquiring wealth and power, and to what
end? That the possessors might buy playthings therewith. Grown-up
children have their toys, but they wear graver aspects than the dolls
and Noah's Arks of childhood. Sometimes the dolls become soldiers
and the arks battleships in the nursery of a German Emperor. And so
the world suddenly realizes that the pursuit of amusements is a
large game, while his Majesty, perchance, practises a little music
now and then, that some day he may fiddle while Rome burns.
Some of us are content to remain awake to the fact that, as Taine
says, "At bottom there is nothing truly sweet and beautiful in life but
our dreams," and to feel that this lovely art of music is a chief
among these dreams. Those of us who are of this mind naturally
enough plume ourselves on our relationship to the kings who have
made wars for playthings. But we have a secret satisfaction in the
assurance that when the kings are forgotten and the boundaries of
their kingdoms blotted from the maps of the world, the art of music
will still be in the possession of the hearts of men. And then we
wonder if the musically unprogressive will still be clinging to their
jingling classic, "Lucia di Lammermoor"?
It is not a question to be answered lightly, for in these days the
number of the lovers of "Lucia" is not to be estimated by the size of
the audiences in the great opera-houses. There the fashion of the
hour rules, and the mellow thunders of Wagner are enjoyed even
with the lights turned down and the gowns in the gloom of a very
precious manifestation of musical progress. It is in the unfashionable
theatres that we must look for the evidences of the continued
popularity of the masterpiece of the incontinent Donizetti. For the
audiences of these houses are distinguished by a noble
independence of thought. They like what they like, and they do not
care who disapproves of it. And they adore "Lucia" even unto this
day. But they do not love Mozart on the one hand, nor Wagner and
the senescent Verdi on the other. And for that reason they are at a
standstill. They are the inglorious army of the musically
unprogressive.
Out of this conclusion may come an inference as false as it is
unattractive. If the lovers of "Lucia" are unprogressive, is, then, a
great singer who still sings this part their leader? One may be
tempted for a moment to utilize an apt jest and say with one of Mr.
Gilbert's most delightful personages, "Bless you, it all depends." If
the great artist is great only by reason of the manner in which she
sings Lucia, then she is a star of the unprogressive. But if she
chance to be Marcella Sembrich and to sing Mozart as beautifully as
she sings Donizetti and with the added understanding which is
essential to the interpretation of the classic of the progressive, then
she is a leader of progress, although she still finds a field for the
exercise of her talents in the world of the complacent.
And if the artist be a tenor and be called Caruso, then he may sing
Edgardo and die of an aromatic melody in the moonlight amid
general blessings.
 THE ORATORIO OF TO-DAY
Praise the Lord with harp: sing unto him with the
psaltery and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto
Him a new song: play skilfully with a loud noise.
Psalms xxxiii. 2, 3.

England, where, as Mr. Gilbert was good enough to tell us in

"Iolanthe," every child is born either a Liberal or a Conservative,
leans both ways within the comfortable domain of oratorio. Chorus
answers unto chorus and fugues pursue the even tenor (or bass, as
the case may be) of their way, as they did in the brave days of old,
when the Saxon sputtered in the Haymarket and threatened to pitch
recalcitrant prima donnas out of windows. The festival of the three
choirs preserves for the edification of a prosaic and stiffnecked
generation the majestic sonorities of Handel and the subtle
intimacies of the introspective Bach.
The prancing of Elgar into this peaceful world with his pocket full of
leading motives, with a dramatization of the very throne of the
Invisible, and a suggestion of the Mary Magdalen of Wagner, neither
astonishes nor stirs the critics. The harsh yell of the shofar disturbs
them no more than the profound rumble of the contrabassoon. And
since Mendelssohn left his "Elijah" ceaselessly clamoring for the
costumes, the action, and the footlights of the stage, no Englishman
is to be set staring by the projection of a sacred drama upon his field
of vision.
After all, it was only in the day of Handel that the Bishop of London
decided for us that oratorios should no more be acted. How do we
know that, if things continue to go forward along the present lines,
we shall not have a later bishop determining that the oratorio ought
to be acted and thereby excluded from the hallowed precincts of
famous cathedral towns? Then the censorious throng which has
looked askance upon the New World performances of "Parsifal"
would find that panorama of a young pilgrim's progress as innocuous
as one of the "Four Serious Songs" of Brahms.
To those who watch with some solicitude the march of musical
progress, it looks as if we were in the midst of a transition in the
world of oratorio. A very peaceful transition, indeed, it is; for we are
no longer to be excited by a comparison of Handel with other
masters. We care not a pinch of snuff whether Coleridge-Taylor be a
genius or not. We go once a year to hear "The Messiah," and
occasionally we remember with a sort of mild surprise that Handel
also wrote "Israel in Egypt." When Mr. Elgar comes along with his
revolutionary notions, compounded of Carissimi, Handel,
Mendelssohn, and Wagner, we view them with a placidity which
would be amusing were it not so stupid. The times have changed,
indeed, since Gray wrote to Swift, on Feb. 23, 1723:—

"As for the reigning amusement of the town, it is entirely music;

real fiddles, bass viols and hautboys; not poetical harps, lyres
and reeds. There's nobody allowed to say 'I sing' but an eunuch
or an Italian woman. Everybody is grown now as great a judge
of music as they were in your time of poetry, and folks that
could not distinguish one tune from another now daily dispute
about the different styles of Handel, Bononcini and Attilio.
People have forgot Homer and Virgil and Cæsar; or at least,
they have lost their ranks. For in London and Westminster, in all
polite conversations, Senesino is daily voted to be the greatest
man that ever lived."
True, this pother was all anent opera, which even to this day evokes
a considerable gush of invalid comment about glorified tenors and
sopranos. At least the men of the opera to-day are actually
masculine, but there is an echo of the Handelian period in the
adoration of tenors. But that, as the pleasant Mr. Kipling was wont to
say in his pleasantest tales, is another story. It was but a flight of
years till London town cackled as busily about Handel's oratorios as
it had about his operas. A private letter from London, printed in
Faulkner's Journal (Dublin) of March 12, 1743, said:—

"Our friend, Mr. Handel, is very well, and things have taken
quite a different turn here from what they did some time past;
for the publick will no longer be imposed on by Italian singers
and wrong-headed undertakers of bad operas, but find out the
merit of Mr. Handel's compositions and English performances.
The new oratorio (called Samson) which he composed since he
left Ireland, has been performed four times to more crowded
audiences than ever were seen; more people being turned away
for want of room each night than hath been at the Italian
opera."

Nevertheless, even in those days there was little enough distinction

between the styles of the opera and the oratorio, and not many
years before Handel's day there had been none at all. Both opera
and oratorio sprang from the same soil and were nurtured by the
same fount, the drama of Greece. Cavaliere's "Anima e Corpo" was a
delectable theatrical performance, prepared under the direction of a
very good man, St. Philip Neri, with the laudable aim of drawing
young persons away from the vulgar secular shows of Rome in the
dawn of the seventeenth century. Like "Die Zauberflöte" this oratorio
ended with a chorus, "to be sung, accompanied sedately and
reverentially by the dance." How deep was the reverence and how
reposeful the sedateness may be gathered from the fact that the
ballet was "enlivened with capers or entrechats."
A religious drama it was, this early oratorio, and it battled its way
into popularity by the mighty power of music. Its arch-enemy was
the old mystery and miracle play, which made of every religious
story something more lively than even an oratorio with a ballet
enriched with capers. To combat the attractiveness of the popular
religious play the oratorio had to cling to the stage, the costume,
and the footlights, and it would have been little stranger to read in
the time of Carissimi (1582-1672) than it was, in the century before
his birth, the famous Coventry bill of expenses, which contains these
items.
Paid for a pair of gloves for God 2d.
2s.
Paid for four pairs of angels' wings
8d.
Paid for mending of hell head 6d.
Paid for a pound of hemp to mend the angels'
4d.
heads
But Carissimi, and still more directly after him Stradella, advanced
the oratorio toward a style in which acting was to become
incongruous. Stradella had the Handelian feeling for mass effects.
He perceived the true use of the great chorus, and he piled up
majestic climaxes with a skill marvellous for his time. He died four
years before Handel was born, but he had already carved out that
definiteness of structure which is so salient a feature of Handel's
works. The drift away from the dramatic character had already
begun. Indeed, Dr. Parry in his admirable "Evolution of the Art of
Music" expresses doubt that even the works of Carissimi can have
been intended for action. Still, we must not forget that whether
oratorio should or should not be acted remained an unsettled
question till the decision of the good Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London,
in Handel's day.
However, a comprehensive view of the works of Handel and Bach
shows that the oratorio had in their time been clearly differentiated
in style and purpose from the opera. Bach's employment of the tenor
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