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n8 A CENTURY OF BALLADS |
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regretful tone, ' Ah, I was obliged to give those away; they ought really to be mine.'" His second set of songs realised £47—not a princely sum !
Bennett composed very little, or at least published very little of what he composed. Of songs he said once that what with finding words with which he thought he could deal, and then finding appropriate music which had at the same time some independent interest of its own, song-writing had been to him more difficult than any other form of composition. London was his favourite place for work. "In the country," he once said, "composition generally ends in taking a walk."
Of the composer's meeting with Tennyson, with whom he was brought into contact over the composition of the Inauguration Ode, his biographer gives an interesting account ; and relates how, when Bennett spoke of the fear of public criticism sitting at his elbow when he tried to compose, Tennyson assured him that he himself knew the feeling only too well. But even more interesting from the point of view of actual song-writing is a letter from Charles Kingsley, with whom Bennett also composed an ode, the occasion in this instance being the installation of the Duke of Devonshire as Chancellor of Cambridge University. " I believe |
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