Though Mendelssohn’s part-songs set the prevailing style in England for many years, many native compositions of sterling worth were produced. Sterndale Bennett wrote only three, but they are fine examples of this class, especially ‘Come, live with me.’ John L. Hatton (1809-1886), Henry Smart (1813-1879), Sir George A. Macfarren (1813-1887), Henry Leslie (1822-1896), Ciro Pinsuti (1829-1888), and other composers in England have written fine part-songs that have been deservedly popular. But Robert L. de Pearsall (1795-1856), who wrote almost exclusively in this form, succeeded in a remarkable degree in combining the quaintness of the old madrigal with the freedom and grace of the more modern style. He published about sixty madrigals and part-songs, a large proportion of which will remain a permanent part of the literature of this field. Among the finest of these may be mentioned the ten-part song ‘Sir Patrick Spens,’ probably the most elaborate and successful part-song in existence, the genuinely humorous ‘Who shall win my lady fair,’ the melodious ‘When last I strayed,’ ‘Purple glow,’ and ‘O who will o’er the downs so free,’ and others equally masterly. About 1835 a general movement was started in France for the establishment of singing societies called _Orphéon_. These were organized in the communal schools, among working people, and at the universities, but were for male singers only. They became very popular and spread with great rapidity. The corporation of Paris recognized their importance and made choral singing one of its municipal departments, in 1852 placing Gounod at the head of the _Orphéon_. Annual contests and festivals were instituted which attracted choral societies from every part of France. In 1867 these choral societies numbered 3,243 with a membership of 147,500. The rapid increase in interest in choral singing naturally led to the composition of numberless unaccompanied part-songs, which were on the whole more elaborate than the English part-songs and which admitted the dramatic element very frequently. Among French composers who wrote expressly for these societies were Halévy, Adolphe Adam, Félicien David, Ambroise Thomas, Gounod, Delibes, Massenet, Dubois, Bazin, and particularly Laurent de Rillé, whose compositions in this form number over a hundred. FOOTNOTES: [68] An adaptation of this melody is associated in England and America with Charles Wesley’s Christmas hymn, ‘Hark! the herald angels sing.’ [69] Though most of Berlioz’s ‘Damnation of Faust’ was written in 1845-6, it really antedated Schumann’s work both in inception and in the actual composition of many of its finest numbers (see page 158). [70] Any morning song of a lively, spirited nature, even a love-song, was called a ‘Hunt’s-up’ in olden English times. CHAPTER VI THE MODERN CANTATA