Part 6

Though I may without scruple aver that nothing has done Mr. Salmon more kindness than that his books have had the honour to be answered, yet I have been forced to afford him this favour rather to chastise the Reproaches which he hath thrown upon the most eminent Professors of Musick than for anything of learning that I found in him. Those gentlemen he accused of ignorance for not embracing his illiterate absurdities for which it was necessary to bring him to the "Bar of Reason" to do him that justice which his follies merited. Though for the fame he gets by this, I shall not much envy him, with whom it will fare as with common criminals, who are seldom talked of above two or three days after execution.

A little farther on he gets angry and says:

Had I been "purblind," "copper-nosed," "sparrow-mouthed," "goggle-eyed," "hunch-backed" or the like (ornaments which the best of my antagonists are adorned with) what work would there have been with me?

Attention has already been directed to Locke's {92} association with dramatic music, and so it would be well to glance briefly at the claim he possesses to be considered the "Father of English Opera." The work which entitles him to be ranked as the writer of the first English Opera is Shadwell's _Psyche_; this, with the music to _The Tempest_, was produced in 1673, with the title of _The English Opera_. It contained a Preface, setting forth Locke's opinions on real Opera. North calls his works in this branch of Art "semi-Operas," but from the title just quoted it may be inferred that Locke, at any rate, considered them full-grown specimens. It should be added that the Act tunes in _Psyche_ were written by Draghi. The writer on Opera in Grove's _Dictionary_ marks Purcell as the originator of English Opera. "Henry Purcell (he says) transformed the Masque into the Opera, or rather annihilated the one and introduced the other." Perhaps Roger North's term "semi-Opera" is the best expression for Locke's essays in this connection.

With regard to Locke's other dramatic music, reference must be made to the _Macbeth_ music, which has for so many years been associated with his name. For long the matter has been the subject of conjecture as to whether he was really the author of it or not.

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The music of _Psyche_ is so good that there is no ground for saying he could not have written the _Macbeth_ music. He was exceedingly dramatic and also melodious. There is a beautiful Dialogue on the death of Lord Sandwich, the great patron of Samuel Pepys, which is to be found in the Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge. No doubt this was written at the suggestion of Pepys. And there is a remarkable setting of Hamlet's soliloquy, also in MS., in Pepys' book, which I firmly believe is by Locke.

As usual Locke wrote an aggressive Preface to _Psyche_. It begins:

That Poetry and Musick, the chief manifestives of Harmonical Phancy, should provoke such discordant effects in many is more to be pityed than wondered at: it having become a fashionable art to peck and carp at other men's conceptions, how mean soever their own are. Expecting, therefore, to fall under the lash of some soft-headed or hard-hearted composers (for there are too many better at finding of faults than mending them) I shall endeavour to remove these few blocks which perhaps they may take occasion to stumble at.

He goes on to say the title Opera is of the Italian, and claims that as far as his ability could reach, he had written agreeably to the design of the author, and that the variety of his setting was never in Court or Theatre till now presented to {94} the nation, "though I must confess there has been something done, and more by me than any other of this kind."

Locke evidently considered _Psyche_ as a real Opera and a novelty in this country. The work was dedicated to James, Duke of Monmouth, who (the composer says) "gave this life by your often hearing this practised and encouraged and heartened the almost heartless undertakers and performers."

Amongst his other works was one called _Melothesia, or Certain general Rules for playing upon a continued Bass_. This is said to be the first book of its kind, and he contributed to many other works. Roger North tells us "Locke set most of the Psalms to music in parts for the use of some vertuoso ladyes in the City, and he composed a magnifick Consort of four parts after the old style which is the last that hath been made."

His life was not long, but it was important, and perhaps the greatest tribute to his memory was that Henry Purcell wrote an ode commemorative of his decease "On the death of his worthy friend Mr Matthew Locke, Music Composer in Ordinary to _His_ Majesty, and Organist of _Her_ Majesty's Chappell, who dyed in August, 1677."

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X. PELHAM HUMFREY

1647--1674

We have all heard of "Single-speech Hamilton," a Member of Parliament, who, it is said, made a "single speech," and by it achieved lasting fame. As a matter of history, Hamilton made other speeches, but it was by the first that he earned his well-known cognomen. And we have a somewhat similar example in connection with a celebrated musician, John Jenkins. Born in 1592, he lived until 1678, and wrote, as North expresses it, "horse-loads of music." He was most prolific and most celebrated, and yet until a few years ago, when I revived many of his compositions--_Dialogues, Fancies for Strings_, and _Latin Motets_--not a note of his music was heard anywhere, save one little piece. But this was sung in every school where vocal music was taught--it is the charming little round _A boat, a boat, haste to the ferry_.

The subject of our present consideration is another example of the same fate. "Pelham Humfrey, Composer of the Grand Chant" is about all people know of him. This so-called {96} Grand Chant is known and sung in every Protestant Church in the world. Humfrey is, however, a worthy member of the band of musicians whose work I am following, and we will see what else he did besides writing the Grand Chant.

Born in 1647, he is said to have been a nephew of Colonel John Humphrey, Bradshaw's sword-bearer.

From the arms which were on his tomb we can learn a little of his family and forbears--these arms, I regret to say, have long since been obliterated, in fact they had gone in Sir John Hawkins' time, together with the epitaph; and at the present time the exact position of the grave can be only a matter of conjecture.[1] But what was on it has been preserved to us in a valuable old work, _Keepe's Monumenta Westmonasteriensia_, 1682. In this work a description is given of the armorial bearings, and by them we can trace him to an old Northamptonshire stock. The family is mentioned as being settled in the County in _The Visitation of Northampton_ of 1564, but had disappeared from it before the next Visitation some years later.

We know nothing of Pelham Humfrey's life {97} until 1660, the year of the Restoration, when we find him, at the age of thirteen, entered as one of the first set of children of the reconstructed Chapel Royal Choir, under Henry Cooke, generally known as Captain Cooke, who having fought in the Civil War, obtained his Captain's Commission as early in the struggle as 1642; and retained his military title for the rest of his life.

While at the Chapel Royal, Humfrey displayed signs of that precocity which so often shows itself in the musical genius. He began composition while yet a boy, and in 1664 we find the words of no fewer than five of his Anthems published in Clifford's _Divine Services and Anthems_.

A reference to one of these Anthems is in the _Diary_ of Samuel Pepys, which contains, by the way, several interesting references to Humfrey's career. Under date November 22nd, 1663, we find:

At Chapel: I had room in the Privy Seale pew with other gentlemen, and there heard Dr. Lilligrew preach. The Anthem was good after Sermon, being the 51st Psalm made for five voices by one of Captain Cooke's boys, a pretty boy. And they say there are four or five of them that can do as much. And here I first perceived that the King is a little Musical and kept good time with his hand all along the Anthem.

Now that Anthem was written by a Choir-boy {98} in the Royal Chapel, but it is a remarkable fact, as Pepys says, that he was not the only boy-composer in the same choir and at the same time. Captain Cooke appears to have been rarely fortunate in having in his newly-formed choral body a set of phenomenally gifted boys, and doubtless no small credit is due to the loyal and gallant musician for the skill and care he must have devoted to their training.

Captain Cooke must have been a clever teacher and a still cleverer selector of boys for his choir; and this brilliant little school he gathered round him (including such names as Humfrey, Blow, and Purcell) shines out like a beacon light in our musical world. A curious and interesting fact bearing upon this came to my knowledge quite lately. A Thesis for a Doctor's degree in the University of Paris (in 1912) was on the subject of _Captain Cooke's Choir Boys_, and it was a clever yet concise account of the work done by these three pupils of Cooke--Humfrey, Blow, and Purcell. English music seems to be looking up when we find a period of our musical history and three of our past great musicians taken as the subject for a thesis in a foreign University!

The same year that witnessed the production of this Anthem was an all-important one, not only for Humfrey but also for English art. On {99} leaving the Royal Choir, Charles II sent him abroad to continue his musical studies; the cost of the trip was paid out of the Secret Service Fund, and was expended in the following way:

1664. "To defray the charge of his journey into France and Italy £200." In the two following years also he was granted £100 and £150 respectively.

Most of the time Humfrey spent abroad was passed in Paris with J. B. Lully, an Italian by birth but a Frenchman by adoption, the most celebrated dramatic musical composer of his day. He wrote many Operas in the most varied styles, both grave and gay, was the composer of a good deal of sacred music, and was also a reformer in Opera-writing; he introduced the accompanied recitative in place of the Italian _Recitative secco_, making many changes in the ballets. Of still more importance was his development of the Overture, for which service he cannot be too highly valued.

It is very probable that the instruction given by Lully to Humfrey was less by precept than by example. The pupil listened with eager ears to his master's music and doubtless often took part in the performance of it. Under this influence--the influence of the greatest master of dramatic music of his time--it is not surprising that the already precocious genius of the young {100} Englishman quickened, and that he returned to his native country with a different conception of his art. Another world had been opened up to him whose earliest instruction had, necessarily, been chiefly confined to the ecclesiastical side of it.

Before his return to England he had been appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, in the place of one Thomas Hazard, January, 1667, and he was duly sworn in the October following. A glance at Pepys' _Diary_ under dates November 1st and 15th, 1667, gives us that shrewd observer's opinion of our hero as he appears fresh from his Continental trip.

November 1st, 1667. To Chapel, and heard a fine Anthem made by Pelham, who is come over.

The entry, however, of a fortnight later is of more interest, as apparently being Mr Pepys' first personal encounter with him since his return.

November 15th, 1667. Home, and there I find, as I expected, Mr. Caesar and little Pelham Humfrey lately returned from France, and is an absolute Monsieur as full of form and confidence and vanity, and disparages everything and everybody's skill but his own. But to hear how he laughs at all the King's Musick here, as Blagrave and others, that they cannot keep time nor tune nor understand anything; and that Grebus, the Frenchman, the King's Master of the Music, how he understands {101} nothing nor can play on any instrument and so cannot compose; and that he will give him a lift out of his place; and that he and the King are mighty great. I had a good dinner for them, a venison pasty and some fowl, and after dinner we did play, he on the Theorbo, Mr. Caesar on his French lute, and I on the viol, but made but mean Musique, nor do I see that this Frenchman do so much wonders on the Theorbo, but without question, he is a good musician, but his vanity do offend me.

Grebus (or rather Grabu) was the King's Master of the Music. He displaced Bannister, who was dismissed, according to the historians, because he championed English violinists and said he preferred them to Frenchmen. He may have said this, but the real cause of his dismissal was that he kept back the money which he ought to have paid to the Private Band! King Charles has often been blamed for dismissing Bannister on account of his patriotic sentiments and defence of English players, but this charge is not true.

Returning to Mr Pepys for a record of his next day's doings, November 16, 1667, we find a very interesting reference to Humfrey and a somewhat scathing criticism from the Diarist:

1667, November 16th. To White Hall, where there is to be a performance of Music of Pelham's before the King. The company not come; but I did go into the Music Room where Captain Cooke and many others, and here I did hear the best and the smallest Organ go that ever I saw in my life {102} and such a one as by the grace of God I will have the next year, if I continue in this Condition, whatever it cost me.

Mr Pepys then records a short walk and talk with Mr Gregory, returning to Whitehall:

And there got into the theatre room and there heard both the vocall and instrumentall Music, where the little fellow (Pelham Humfrey) stood keeping time, but for my part I see no great matter, but quite the contrary, in both sorts of Music. The composition, I believe, is very good, but no more of delightfulness to the eare or understanding, but what is very ordinary.

In addition to being a composer, Humfrey was an accomplished lutenist, and in the State Papers for the year 1668, under date January 20th, we find a promotion of his in the Royal Service; the record runs as follows:

January 20th, 1668. Warrant to pay Pelham Humfreys, Musician in Ordinary on the Lute, in place of Nich. Sawyer deceased £40 yearly, and £16 2s. 6d. for Livery.

On May 29th of this same year Mr Pepys again refers to him:

May 29th, 1668. Home, whither by agreement by and by comes Mercer and Gayet and two gentlemen with them, Mr. Monteith and Pelham, the {103} former a swaggering young handsome gentleman, the latter a sober citizen merchant.[2] Both sing, and the latter with great skill, the other no skill, but a good voice and a good basse, but used only to tavern tunes; and so I spent all this evening till eleven at night, singing with them till I was tired of them, because of the swaggering fellow, tho' the girl Mercer did mightily commend him before me.

Later in the year (July) another reference is made in the _Diary_:

July 11th, 1668. So home, it being almost night (Mr. Pepys had been after an espinette at Deptford), and there find in the garden Pelling, who hath brought Tempest, Wallington, and Pelham to sing, and there had most excellent Musick late, in the dark with great pleasure.

Humfrey's Sacred music is a clear evidence of his French experience. He puts symphonies for strings and is dramatic at times and often somewhat light. An Anthem _O Praise the Lord_ is a good example of the latter tendency. There are two short Bass solos, one to the words _Sing praises lustily_, which is almost like the song of a jovial sailor! It is in triple time, and is the sort of thing King Charles would certainly have beaten time to with his hand "all along the Anthem," in Pepys' words. The Bass solo in the Anthem he {104} wrote when a boy and before his French training is in a quite different style, and might have been written by any of our good Cathedral writers, such as Locke, or Blow, or even Purcell.

In addition to his Sacred works Humfrey wrote three Odes and many songs. These latter fall under the critical notice of Dr Burney, who refers to them, I think, rather unfairly and harshly. Speaking of a collection called _Choice Songs and Aires_, Burney says: "Among these songs, to the number of near fifty, there is not one air that is either ingenious, graceful, cheerful or solemn: an insipid languor or vulgar pertness pervades the whole. From Pelham Humphry, whose Church Music is so excellent, I own I expected to find originality, or merit of some kind or other; but his songs are quite on a level with the rest."

Burney's remarks are not only spiteful, but untrue. To mention only one song, Humfrey's setting of _Where the Bee Sucks_, which he wrote for Dryden and Davenant's altered version of _The Tempest_ (the oldest setting but one which we possess), is charming, both as regards melody and harmony. The first part is in the minor key, for which Humfrey seems--like Purcell--to have a weakness. There is an effective change to the Tonic Major at _Merrily, merrily shall I live now_, with a most striking and delicious drop of a {105} 7th (I expect Burney regarded this as a crudity), To me the song seems one of the best of the time.

Humfrey went on adding rapidly to his honours. On January 24th, 1672, he was elected one of the wardens of "the Corporation for regulating the Art and Science of Musick," and in July of the same year his old master, Captain Cooke, died; his death being accelerated--so Antony Wood tells us--by chagrin at finding himself getting supplanted by his old pupil. This I do not believe: Cooke would have had a soul above such foibles, and had too many successful pupils to be jealous of poor little Humfrey.

However this may be, Humfrey succeeded him as Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, and later, jointly with Thomas Purcell, he was appointed Composer in Ordinary for the Violins to His Majesty.

It was in this year, 1672, that he wrote a charming little song called _Wherever I am and Whatever I do_. It was written for Dryden's _Conquest of Granada_, produced in that year.

Nothing of any importance is chronicled of him for the last two years of his all too short life. He died at Windsor on July 13th, 1674, and was buried in the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, near the south east door. His last will and {106} testament, witnessed by his old schoolfellow, Dr Blow, is interesting:

Aprill ye 23rd, 74.

Bee itt knowne to all people whomsoever itt may Concerne that I leave my deare wife my sole executrix and Mrs. of all I have in the world after those few debts I owe are payd:

I only desire that 3 Legacyes may bee given that is to say to my cousin Betty Jelfe: to Mr. Blow ad to Besse Gill each of them twenty shillings to buy them Rings.

Pell. Humfrey.

30 July, 1674.

Which day appeared personally John Blow of Westminster and made oath that he was present when Mr. Pelham Humfrey wrote the above written writing containing his last will and testament and he the sd Mr. Pelham Humfrey being of perfect mind and sound memory published and declared the same for his last will and testament.

John Blow.

30 July, 74.

(Proved 30 July 1674 by Catherine Humfrey Relict and sole executrix).

Humfrey's life, brief though it was, must be regarded as a turning point in our art's history--not alone by his own compositions, but by the infusion of his influence into the greater Purcell. He was not only Purcell's master at the Chapel Royal, but actually composed an Anthem jointly with Purcell, called _By the Waters of Babylon_. In Boyce's opinion "he was the first of our ecclesiastical {107} composers who had the least idea of musical pathos and expression of the words," but this is an exaggeration.

This great advance in our music was carried on by the immortal Purcell, who, as a choir-boy under Humfrey, was, no doubt, an eager listener to the "new effects" which his master introduced. The pupil is so great, one is in danger of forgetting the master. At least here we have endeavoured to do some justice to the short-lived genius Pelham Humfrey.

[1] I have lately identified the spot. Keepe was for eighteen years a member of the Abbey Choir, and probably sang at Humfrey's funeral.

[2] I cannot help thinking Pepys meant Pelham as the swaggering young handsome gentleman, and Monteith as the sober citizen merchant.

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XI. DR JOHN BLOW

1648--1708

If there is one name among the Twelve Musicians with whom I am dealing in this course of Lectures to which I desire specially to do justice, it is that of Dr. John Blow. As a child I sang his Anthems in Rochester Cathedral, and I well remember the delight with which I listened to, and took part in, his beautiful and expressive _I beheld, and lo a great multitude_, and _I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day_. In those days the great masterpieces of the English Cathedral School were constantly done, and very well done, at Rochester, and none of the Anthems except I may say, perhaps, Purcell's great Anthem _O Sing unto the Lord_, touched me and thrilled me as did that of Blow. And as long as I played in Manchester Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, so long did I feel the power and religious impressions of these splendid specimens of Blow's genius. Of course there are many Anthems and Services by this master, but none, to me at least, ever spoke so eloquently as did the two I have mentioned. This is one reason {109} why I approach the subject of Blow's career with such a desire to do him justice. Another is the strange neglect of most of his secular music, and lastly the absurd and ignorant criticism of Dr Burney, as displayed in his _History_, when he talks of "Blow's crudities."

Without further delay let us proceed to trace his musical life. I refrain, on account of time, from dwelling much on biographical details in these Lectures. So I will merely state that it seems pretty certain that Blow was born at North Collingham, in Nottinghamshire, and baptised in the Parish Church of Newark in February 1648-9. Let us begin with recording his admission as a Chorister to the Chapel Royal--one of the "clever boys" whom Captain Cooke got together and taught. Of his school-fellow, Pelham Humfrey, I have already spoken, and, like Humfrey, Blow composed Anthems while in the choir. It is possible--or rather, I think, probable--that an entry in Pepys' _Diary_ refers to him. Under the head of August 21, 1667, we read:

This morning come two of Captain Cooke's boys, whose voices are broke, and are gone from the Chappell, but have extraordinary skill, and they and my boy, with his broken voice, did sing three parts: their names were Blaew and Loggings, but notwithstanding their skill, yet to hear them sing with their {110} broken voices, which they could not command to keep in tune, would make a man mad, so bad it was.

If this refers to Blow he would be about nineteen years old, and could have had but a very broken voice. But it is not impossible, as many boys retain their voices until a good age, and continue singing "alto" in a moderate sort of style. It is hardly likely there would be a boy named Blaew and one named Blow. And there was some arrangement whereby boys who had left the Choir continued to reside with the Masters, possibly to study.[1]