Henry Purcell

drawing attributed to Kneller. (Reproduced by

the Trustees
of the British Museum.)

courtesy

of

HENRY PURCELL
1659-1695

Essays

on his Music

edited by

IMOGEN HOLST

LONDON
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New

York Toronto

1959

Oxford University

Press,

Amen

House, London E.C.j.

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON

BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI KUALA LUMPUR
CAPE TOWN IBADAN NAIROBI ACCRA

Oxford University

Press,

Printed in Great Britain

1959

PREFACE
This collection of essays was planned as a result of trying to

some of the practical problems of editing Purcell's

works for performance. Even those of us who have been
brought up on his music are still woefully ignorant when
it comes to such
questions as whether a note should be
or
it should be a flat or a natural.
whether
doubly-dotted
One longs to know what balance of singers and players
Purcell had at his first performances and whether certain
parts were sung by a counter-tenor or by an ordinary tenor
with light, easy top notes. Perhaps our greatest need, when
puzzled by the conflicting guesses of different editors of his
music, is to know where to find the manuscripts, and,
having found them, to know how to recognize if they are
solve

autographs or not.

The following

answer a great many questions, and

to
the
very grateful
singers, players, composers, and
writers who have found time to contribute, from their
I

essays

am

practical experience, to this tercentenary

volume.

Many others have helped in the writing of this book. I

am particularly grateful to the Tokyo representatives of the
making enquiries about
to
Mr.
Anthony Gishford for his enlibrary,
in
the
couragement
early stages of this book, and to the

British Council for their kindness in

the

Nanki

Oxford University
stages. I also

Press for their patience in the later

wish to thank Messrs. Faber

& Faber Ltd.

for

permission to quote from Poetry and Drama, by T. S. Eliot,

and Messrs. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. for permission
to quote from Problems ofArt, by Suzanne Langer.

LH.
Aldeburgh, September, 1958

CONTENTS
to the British

Orpheus. PETER PEARS

1.

Homage

2.

On

3.

New

4.

PurceWs

5.

Our sense of continuity

realizing the continue in

Light on 'Dido and Aeneas'. ERIC

6. Purcell

7.

8.

An

Purcell's

librettist,

Nahum

Tate.

in English

songs.

BENJAMIN BRITTEN

WALTER WHITE

14

IMOGEN HOLST

35

drama and music. MICHAEL TIPPETT

42

and the Chapel Royal. JEREMY NOBLE

organist's

view of the organ works. RALPH

52

DOWNES

67

Performing PurceWs music today (with a section on the dances by

Imogen Hoist). ROBERT DONINGTON

9.

PurceWs Handwriting. FRANKLIN

APPENDIX

B.

74

ZIMMERMAN

103

PurceWs autographs. NIGEL FORTUNE and FRANKLIN

A.

B.

ZIMMERMAN
APPENDIX

B.

Further

IO6
seventeenth-

and eighteenth-century evidence

bearing on the performance of PurceWs works. ROBERT

APPENDIX

c.

A note on the Nanki collection ofPurceWs works.

IMOGEN HOLST
INDEX

122

DONTNGTON

127
131

ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF
Henry

Purcefl.

A drawing

courtesy of the Trustees

attributed to Kneller.

(Reproduced by
of the British Museum)
Frontispiece
Facing page

I.

A page from Gildon's adaptation of Measure for Measure (1700),

showing part of the additional scene in Dido and Aeneas.
(Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of the British

II.

Museum)

24

PurcelTs transcription of part of the

begi.nni.ng of Monteverdi's
'Cruda Amarilli and part of his own 'Benedicite'. Bod5

leian Library,

Oxford,

MS. Mus.

a.i, p. 2.

(Reproduced by

40

courtesy ofBodley's Librarian)

IE. PurceU's musical

handwriting. Fitzwilliam

(Reproduced by courtesy of

the

MS.

88,

141 (rev.)

Syndics of the Fitzwilliam

Museum, Cambridge)

88

IV. PurcelTs
handwriting. British

Museum, Royal Music MS.

20.H.8, front index. (Reproduced by courtesy

of the British Museum

of the Trustees

104

Facsimile

i.

Rules for Graces from PurcelTs

Choice Collection

of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinet, published

widow

by

his

in 1696.
(Reproduced by permission of the Trustees

the British

Facsimile 2. Tables of Graces

Auction to the Skill

of

p age g 2

Museum)

from John

Playford's

An

Intro-

of Musick thirteenth edition, printed for

Henry Playford in 1697. (This is the edition for which
Purcell had collaborated with
page 83
Playford)

Homage

to the British

Orpheus

PETER PEARS
The

magic brew of song are words and

of
notes.
gift
melody is often enough to give great
the correct accentuation of words can inform and
pleasure;
the
revelation of sense through sound and of sound
suggest;
in sense is given to few to achieve. None would deny
PurcelTs melodic genius; there is plentiful witness to it
throughout his work for the stage, both instrumental and
vocal. 'I attempt from love's sickness to fly', *If music be
the food of love', 'They tell us that yon mighty powers', 'If
ingredients in the

of a long list
ofjewels. Purcell was content often, as Dowland was before
him, to use a simple dance-form as a song, and also to turn
love's a sweet passion' are only the beginning

a dance into a song or a song into a dance, e.g. the Hornpipe

from the Fairy Queen which was used for 'There's not a
swain'. 1 The four bar phrases of If love's a sweet passion'
link, it to the dance; no one has written a more
singable
*

melody

to

fit

into twenty-four bars.

The dance-forms

at Purcell's
disposal were less favourable
for the settings of songs of character than the Pavans and
Galliards which Dowland used. The heavy down beats of

the Pavan easily suggest melancholy moods, and

Dowland

An American musician, Mr. Jonathan Edmunds, has fitted contemporary words to some of Purcell's Ayres for the Theatre and Incidental dances. Some of them go very well, more particularly the
1

straighter dance-forms.

Homage

was not a

man

PurcelTs dances

to the British

Orpheus

to miss a chance so

were more

much

to his fancy.
extrovert and better suited to

gay songs and sweet sentiments.

When

Purcell

wishes to

elaborate

slightly

simple

dance-form for the setting of words, his felicity can be quite

extraordinary. Consider such a popular favourite as 1
attempt from love's sickness to fly'. Only a consummate
genius could unite such cunning with such delicious freshness. First, the little dove-like flight

of notes on the word

run and a twist to escape) colours the vocal

'fly' (a straight
line; next, the very lack of symmetry in the rhythm (five
bars plus seven bars in the refrain, five plus six

and four plus

wayward movement

to the song,
the end of each line adds a touch of hopeless
weakness to remind the listener of the vain attempt at
six in the verses)' gives a

while the

fall at

escape from love's sickness. As often happens in PurcelTs

music, the major key sounds sad; compare his use of minor
keys for joy. Many of PurcelTs shorter songs are in dance

form

slightly elaborated at cadences, prolonged by repetiof key words. These are often surprisingly difficult
to perform because the phrases need very clever shaping, and

tions

can

easily

sound strange and

'Olinda', 'See

The

dull.

how the fading glories'

'I take no
pleasure',
are songs of this type.
music has to be very

between words and

carefully examined, and the poise has to be found and held
in those tricky wayward phrases which are continually
going out of the straight.
relationship

To find an example of PurcelTs direct magic with words

and music, one need go no further than Dido and Aeneas.
Fear no danger to ensue,
The Hero loves as well as you,
sings Belinda in lines

of no very

special distinction.

But

3
Homage to the British Orpheus
Nahum Tate knew what he was about, and he gave Purcell
verses of a neutral, passive quality which were fair game for a
real

composer. In the hands of a

lesser

man, the result might

well have been deadly: Purcell uses the words for his
musical ends and with false verbal accents gives a brilliant
lilt

to the passage and offers us a

memorable

melody of

quality. (This air is surely

striking

and

the father of Handel's

of Milton's 'Come and

trip it as you go on the light

Other composers of the period
the stock devices also, as Purcell did; but he almost

setting

L Allegro.)

fantastic toe' in

use

all

always transforms them by the magic of genius into sensitive

living creations. His vocal line is more inventive within its
chosen shape; compare, for instance, Blow's Self-Banished
with PurcelTs 'How blest are shepherds'. His figured bass

seldom

to give an inventive player legitimately lively

ideas for realization. It is hardly necessary to remark that a
fails

great danger of the figured-bass style lies in the responsibility that is thrown on the keyboard player. If he is dull
and inept, even the best music can sound very tedious. In

movements over a ground bass can die from

lack of invention. The splendid Divine Hymns, too, need a
feeling for colour from the keyboard to match the wonderparticular, the

fully expressive vocal line.

We

have the Air 'Here the

approve' over a ground, transcribed for the solo

harpsichord by the composer, to show us how ravishingly
deities

would have accompanied such a piece himself.

would seem that at no time was he not a master of

Purcell
It

dramatic character-painting in recitative.

anthems to the

From

the earliest

he set, Purcell seems to have

of character in music quite
tempted to say) at any time. But alas

song that
a flair for the creation
last

had
without equal (one is
he had all too little opportunity for exercising this prodigious
!

talent.

Dido and Aeneas, some of the religious

pieces,

some

Homage

to the British

of the incidental music,

this

is all

Orpheus

that can be included in the

dramatic category. Most of the stage music, nearly

all

of

The Tempest, The Fairy Queen is

King Arthur, Dioclesian,
and skilful and inventive and
masque music, delightful
that
adorable, but lacking the sustained intensity

fills

the

music of character and situation. Nor was this anything but

dramatic music of the intensity of Dido or 'Job's

right;

Curse would have been quite out of place in King Arthur

or The Fairy Queen. One can see from songs like 'The Fatal
what
Hour', 'Sweeter than Roses' and 'From rosy bowers'
involvPurcell could have done with the operatic situations

one can also imagine

ing the most pointed characterizations;
airs over a ground
and
his
effect
what
expressive
lyrical

would have had in

their proper perspective in a Gluck-ish

No

has a
opera seria of Gluck
or
Lament
more intense and un-artificial air than Dido's
and
*O Solitude',
though these are in the 'ancient
or Mozartian opera libretto.

composed
form of a Ground. The seventeenth century was in
its musical forms 'much freer than the eighteenth century;
like to label in a derogait was a
period which musicologists
sensitive and lively,
tory tone 'transitional', nearly always
in which a genius such as Purcell could find all he wanted for
learned'

the exercise of his talents, even in opera, until the social

in which a man of letters (Dryden)
conventions of a
capital

was incomparably more important than a musician put

Purcell into a secondary position in the theatre. Lamentations

vain, one should not bewail the crackling

of Dryden's King Arthur, might one not rather
H. Auden, the Dryden of our time,
suggest that Mr. W.
should leave tampering with Mozart's untouchable Flute

are

no doubt

fustian

and consider refashioning the stage framework for PurcelTs

lovely music?
"When the background to PurcelTs dramatic songs

is

Homage

to the
c

the text (e.g.

implicit in

he

is

at his

superb

best.

dramatically have so

British

Mad

Orpheus

Bess',

'From rosy bowers')

Some of the poems which he

little

set

character that even Purcell can

hardly reveal the personality of the singer. In the Divine

Hymns, however, with the whole Bible as his stage and some

thundering texts by contemporary bishops comparable

with, though superior to, Bach's cantata texts, Purcell
created dramatic scenes of great vividness. 'Job's Curse',
'Saul at Endor', and 'The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation'
are full of examples of astonishing invention. The Prologue

and Epilogue to 'Saul' bring the characters on to the stage

and take them off again in music of perfectly-timed mysteriousness. Samuel's appearance is calculated to present the
dark colour of the bass voice to the most impressive

new

effect imaginable. Saul's

high

distress

and the witch's wails

are dramatic strokes of a master-composer for the stage.

Virgin's ariettas are concise and beautifully contrasted,

her reiterated

cries

of

'Gabriel' are

The
and

amazing each time one

hears them.

What

Curse' so impressive a
work? In the long recitative, the declamation is of the most
vivid kind, where each word has its proper dramatic

accent

makes, for instance,

(as

7b' s

against the natural accent)

and yet

fits

into

an

impressive musical pattern.

Let the night perish, cursed be the morn
Wherein 'twas said, There is a man-child born!

emerges and climbs over towards

last words, and then we are off
to an agony of prophetic denunciations in a music of wild

Slowly the melodic

line

the hammer-strokes of those

The voice moves through intervals strange and

the
unexpected;
harmony continually changes; it is difficult
to imagine that the eighteenth century is only a decade

tortuousness.

Homage

to the British

Orpheus

away. After the long recitative with its many picturesque

wonderful section starting
points and the

Why did I not when first my mother's womb

Discard' d

me

drop

down into my tomb?

Purcell gives us a beautiful resigned air full of Job's longing

for the peace of the grave, an air where each word is so
placed that its whole meaning seems to penetrate each

An extraordinary intensity emerges which

comes from the complete wedding of the sound and sense
of the words with a melody of great musical beauty. It is,

individual note.

to use Dryden's phrase, 'Musick, the exaltation

of Poetry'.

This magic gift of PurcelTs with words and music cannot

be explained any more than Schubert's can. It is easy enough
to say that he

found in words the sound-picture (line, colour,

translatable into song. How he

and proportion) which was

found
his

this,

and

his

method of translating, are his secrets and

is
really no need to probe; it is enough

copyright. There

to love, in this his tercentenary year, our

incomparable
Orpheus Britannicus.

On

Realizing the Continue

in Purcell's

Songs
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
In practically every one of our concerts, given the length
of three continents over the last twenty years, Peter Pears

and

have included a group of PurcelTs songs. Although

were
not included for chauvinistic reasons, it has been
they
I

nice to find that foreign audiences accept these English

songs alongside those of their own great classic song-writers.
It is

pleasant to get cheers at the

in the

'Man

end of PurcelTs

home of Schubert and Wolf,

is

for the

woman

'Alleluia*

a repeat
requests for

of

made' in the birthplace of Mozart,

the end of 'There's not a swain of

appreciative giggles at
the Plain' in Faure's home town, and an impressive silence
as the last bars of
'Job's Curse' die away in Diisseldorf,

where Schumann spent many years. And not only in foreign

England too

places; in

because so

what is

is

still

available

is

which are frankly dull and

PurcelTs solo songs, secular and

in realizations

out of date. Because

all

big scenas, have to be realized.

have these wonderful vocal parts, and fine strong basses,

sacred, as well as his

We

where, to our shame, the music

shockingly unknown. It is unknown

much of it is unobtainable in print, and so much of

of Purcell

many

but nothing in between (even the figures for the harmony

are often missing). If the tradition of improvisation from a
figured bass were not

lost, this

would not be

so serious,

but

On

8
to

in Purcell's Songs
Realizing the Continue*

worked-out edition

until a

most people now,

incredible beauty

and

vitality,

is

avail-

nothing, and the

and infinite variety of these

lines
able, these cold, unfilled-in

mean

hundreds of songs go undiscovered. Therefore over these

I have myself realized about twenty secular

many

years

few

sacred

songs,
songs (mostly from Orpheus Britannicus],
four of the big Divine Hymns (from the Harmonia Sacra)
and half-a-dozen duets (some taken from the dramatic
Purcell's widow in Orpheus
works
reprinted separately
all

Britannicus)

by

with piano.

have

also realized for

other

occasions the Golden Sonata, and continue parts of the fine

Welcome Song of 1687, and Purcell's masterpiece, Dido and
There is also a sequence of songs,
Aeneas, for

harpsichord.
a Suite from Orpheus Britannicus,

where

realized the figured

bass for strings.

Never have

of any
attempted the ultimate realization

of these songs. Since the accompaniments were originally

intended to be improvised, they must be personal and
immediate and as we know only too well how ephemeral

how quickly tastes change, so each generation

must want its own realizations. (I have myself in several
cases changed my mind about my own efforts and after a

fashions are,

The most I have hoped for is to

years rewritten them.)
have drawn attention to some of these wonderful and useful
that
by a lively enough version, and hope therefore
few

songs

eventually other people

arrange them, themselves.
I

have no theories

as to

will like these songs

how

this

enough

to

should be done. But in

my experience here are a few deductions. It

an important rule of the game that one should stick to the

the light of
is

of the bass (with allowable changing of the

of the notes it seems in those days they were not too

actual notes

length

particular

about

this

and changing of the octave, such

as

On

Realizing the Continue in Purcelfs Songs

could be done by different registrations on the harpsichord.)

And one must of course

complete the harmonies in the

way

the figures indicate. If there are gaps in these (and there are
many) a knowledge of the period and the composer's
personal style should help. But just a filling in by these
harmonies above the correct notes is not enough; one
is still
lacking, the dimension of one's personal
reaction to the song, which in former days would have been

dimension

by improvisation. This dimension comes from the

of the accompaniment, the way the harmonies are
filled in. If one is realizing for a piano it is important to be
aware of the difference of sound from harpsichord and
string bass, for which most of the songs would have been
written. There must be compensation for the lack of
sustaining power of the actual bass notes (repeated notes,
supplied
texture

octaves,

trills,

tremolandi for crescendi &c.), as well

as

an

awareness of the difference between the plucked and hammered strings. Actually the sound that Purcell expected,
this
harpsichord sound, can give one ideas dry clear
arpeggios, grace-notes, octave doublings, sudden contrasts
in dynamics or range, and that wonderful short staccato.

However, the principal factors determining the texture

are the form of the songs, the shapes of phrases in the voice
part or the bass, and of course the mood of the words.
If the songs are simple verse songs, or songs not broken
up
this

into

many

sections, the

by keeping

accompaniment should

to a consistent style. In

*I

reflect

attempt from

love's sickness to fly' I have supported the beautiful melody

with simple continuous four-part harmony (with occasional
doublings), with the top line occasionally moving in quavers
suggested by the tune and the mood ofthe song. In 'Fairest Isle*
I have used PurcelTs own harmonies taken from his choral
version (in King Arthur) with new keyboard spacing. In each
,

BHP

On

10

Realizing the Continue in Purcell

of 'Man

successive verse

is

for the

woman

Songs

made'

have

new figuration to match the increasing dottiness of

the words. In 'How blest are shepherds' and 'On the brow of

invented

the repetitions (I suggest, echoes) of each

section of the tune have newly spaced harmonies to support it.

Richmond

The

Hill'

solo version

of 'Turn then thine eyes' has rapid quaver

of the voice part. The

to introduce the coloratura

triplets
lively J^ J

of

'will

on thy cheek

appear'

is

echoed on the

The

elegant coquetry of 'Pious Celinda' suggested

piano.
to me an ironic eighteenth-century phrase with a turn and

grace note, which interrupts the amusing vocal line. 'Hark

the echoing air' suggested imitations of trumpets and oboes

did the 'Sound the Trumpet' duet) and the 'clapping of

wings' suggested quick, snappy grace notes. In the songs
(as

with ostinato

ostinato clearly

which

many, I try to establish the

to begin with, and then colour each new

basses,

are

image with new figuration

the 'snakes drop' in staccato

thirds in 'Music for a while' after a clear four-octave start;

Hymn' the harmonies change very slowly

and figuration is only gradually introduced.
In the form which Purcell perfected the continuous

in the 'Evening

movement made up of independent,

short sections mysteri-

of key, mood, and rhythm.

the accompaniment must follow and emphasize these
contrasts. Each miniature section of 'Sweeter than Roses'
ously linked

by subtle contrasts

has its own figuration; the cool arpeggios of the 'roses'

in the short interlude, echoing the singer's first melting

the growing intensity of 'warm' and the firm

cadential 'kiss'; the
'trembling' is in oscillating sixths; high

phrase

shivering chords 'freeze';

has lively crackling chords;

trumpets accompany the 'victorious love', and dizzy whirl'fire'

ing quavers 'all, all, all is love'. This perhaps sounds naive,
but Purcell has himself suggested some such musical

pictures

On

Realizing the Continue in PurcelYs Songs

in the voice

and

bass parts,

11

and besides he has provided in

and secure musical structure which

hold together and make sense of one's wildest

these given parts a firm

can safely
fantasies. This

is
only one of many similar cases. Perhaps
the most beautiful and certainly one of the wildest, is 'Mad

Here to start, to finish, and to introduce many of the

have used a scurrying semiquaver passage based
on the first vocal phrase. Dramatically it can be said to
suggest the movements of poor demented Bess.
In the Divine Hymns I have used the same kind of technique, but with a less exaggerated fantasy, since the moods
Bess'.

sections, I

are mostly less extreme. 'Lord, what is man' is in three fully

worked out sections. The austere recitative which starts this

Hymn I have accompanied quite barely: a turn for each

of the long pedal notes later a trill at the more animated
'Reveal ye glorious spirits' chords at each change of

fine

harmony; and

echo the vocal run as joy' fades out into

'astonishment'. In the arioso 'Oh, for a quill' the little quaver

passages in the piano part are all suggested by the voice or bass
part,

and by the intense though subdued

The

final 'Hallelujah' starts

quietly

mood of longing.

in figuration, largely

octave doubling of the bass. I have added semiquaver figures

as the momentum grows, and as the movement fades out
into a soft ecstatic finish (which is the way we always do
the right hand crosses and re-crosses the voice in flowing
it)

semiquavers.
splendid opening tune of 'We sing to Him' suggests
the singing of a thousand voices, so the accompaniis in full
ringing chords.

The
to

me

ment

In 'Job's Curse' I have taken the liberty of repeating the

last four bass bars as a little codetta after the voice has
finished, in order to let the

die

away more

gradually.

impact of this tremendous scena

It is

however printed in small

On

12

Realizing the Continue in Purcell's Songs

notes and can be omitted very easily. Similarly in *I attempt

from love's sickness to fly', that perfect opening song for a

have preluded the song by a few bars; practical

this is necessary in order to
experience has shown us that

recital,

accustom the audience to the

subtle

mood

before the voice

style

of the music, the sweet,

starts.

The two

little ariosi

in

'The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation' are more contrapuntal at 'me Judah's daughter', canonical, with the left

hand gently

One
'Saul

in the harmonies.

most elaborate dramatic Scenas

is

and the Witch

at the start

the

filling

of PurcelTs

at Endor'. Misty slow-moving quavers

bind together the three voices, united in setting

gloomy

scene.

When

they separate into their three

have used the simple device of differto add to the characterizations the ghost of

individual characters

ent registers
Samuel almost disappearing off the bottom of the piano.
'Celemene', the Dialogue for soprano and tenor from

Oroonoko ('sung by the boy and the

girl')

could not be a

The

children prattle away about the

greater
of
and
I
followed the onomatopoeia of
have
love,
puzzles
the voice parts: the heart-beats, the trembling, the touching.
contrast.

A five-finger exercise matches the innocence of 'When you

wash yourself and play

Again in

tried to follow every instruction in this

'I

spy Celia'

have

young person's guide

to love.

In the Suite

from Orpheus Britannicus in which

arranged

the figured basses for strings the problem was really the
same as if realizing for piano, but with the big difference of
thinking in terms of strings. At the start of 'Let sullen
I added a viola
part to the other strings
because of the absence of a keyboard instrument. In the
original the upper strings were dropped at the entry of the

Discord smile'

voice. I continue

them in simple four-part harmony, adding

On
martellato

Realizing the Continue in Purcell's Songs

scale

passages at

war devote

'let

13

day to

this

In 'Why should men quarrel* strings pizzicato fill

peace'.
out the harmony in between the spiky flute figuration and
the

harmony

double

when

the glittering queen of Night' has

filled out in the divided muted cellos and

the cello solo. 'So

march-like background the

voice and three solo strings stand out clearly like stars on a
dark night. The introduction of 'Thou tun'st this world' is
bass.

originally

this funeral

Against

for

two oboes and continue.

have given the bass

and not completed the harmony. When the

voice enters, the strings take over with simple detached chords,
line to a bassoon

only occasionally flowing into figuration. At the end of this

typically Purcelhan song in a gay minor key, we repeat the
second half of the introduction

(as

before

on wind

instru-

ments alone). The splendid 'Sound Fame' has a rousing, but

not Handelian, trumpet solo against one of Purcell's barest
ostinatos. The latter I have
given to a second string orchestra
in octaves

(at

The

the end in four octaves).

first

orchestra

plays counterpoints and occasionally pizzicato block harmonies; finally joining the trumpet in diatonic semiquavers.
I

know

there are

figured basses

many

other ways of realizing PurcelTs

a highly distinguished series

is

now

being
Michael Tippett and "Walter
Bergmann. I hope there will be many more, and done with
plenty of boldness of imagination, for what has kept so

brought out by

my

friends

many of these wonderful

treasures locked

has been creative dullness or too

would have hated

that

is

these

two

much

qualities

the feeling one has after getting to

even these few works.

up in obscurity

reverence. Purcell

above

all;

at least,

know him through

New

To

who

Light on 'Dido and Aeneas'

ERIC WALTER WHITE
believe that Dido and Aeneas

is a
masterpiece
information
about its music
of English opera, authoritative

those

and libretto

No

is

of considerable importance.

was published in PurcelTs lifetime in fact, the

first
published version was an incomplete one printed by the
Musical Antiquarian Society in 1841 and today the main
score

authority for the music resides in certain copyists' manuscripts. Writing in the preface to the Purcell Society edition

of Dido and Aeneas, 1889, Dr. W. H. Cummings claimed to

have in his possession *a MS. score of the opera written
probably in PurcelTs time'. After his death, this score was
sold at Sotheby's in 1917 under the following description:
Purcell (H) Dido and Aeneas, MS., with musical notes, half
uncut, S^EC. XVEI

calf,

was acquired by the Marquis Tokugawa and shipped to

Japan in 1920, where for some years it remained in the
Nanki Music Library. It is not clear where it is now, 1 so
It

Cummings's claim cannot be checked.

This is unfortunate, because Cummings appears to have
been an unreliable guide to the other important manuscript
score the one that formerly belonged to the Rev. Sir
Frederick Ouseley and is now in the Library of St. Michael's

Tenbury Wells.
News of this MS. is

College,
1

He

refers to this

given in

manuscript also

Appendix C.

[Editor.]

New Light

on 'Dido and Aeneas

15

in the preface to the Purcell Society edition of Dido and

calls it 'a fine MS. score written
by John Travers,

Aeneas and

name ofJohn

Travers is mentioned
and
the
manuscript;
anonymous scribe's
a
differs
in
number
of marked particulars from
handwriting

about 1720.' In

nowhere in
Travers's

fact,

own

notoriously

the

this

authenticated hand. Handwriting

difficult to

apply with complete

tests

success;

are

but

in this case the apparently gratuitous attribution to Travers

is
probably also faulted by the paper on which the manuscript

written. This being watermarked *j. WHATMAN'

date from the latter part of the eighteenth century.
is

must
But the
-

fact

attribution of the

Cummings was wrong about the

Tenbury MS. and that it belongs to a later

that

date than hitherto suspected do not necessarily detract

from its value. Whoever the scribe may have been, his copy
was a 'fair* one in the best sense of that word. Not only is it
clean and clear, but internal evidence shows it was based on a
very early score possibly PurcelTs own original manuthe theatre. The style of notation
script as adapted for use in
and the restricted use of figuration imply that the original
must date from the end of the seventeenth or beginning of
century. The plentiful stage directions
an actual stage production.
Nahum Tate came to write the libretto, he was

the eighteenth

certainly refer to

"When

already familiar with the story of

Dido and Aeneas,

since

some years previously lie had based the action of his first
play on the fourth book of the Aeneid, but on the advice of
certain friends (as he explains in the preface) he had altered
the names of the characters and the scene of the action, the

tragedy in its transformed guise appearing as Brutus of Alba

which made use of
(1678). His libretto for PurcelTs opera,

some of the material that had appeared in the earKer play,

was originally brought out as an eight-page folio pamphlet

New Light

16

on ''Dido and Aeneas'

as no publisher's name is
(perhaps for private circulation
at the head of
the
with
inscription
p. i
following
given)

of the

text:

AN OPERA
Perform' d at

MR. JOSIAS PRIEST's

Boarding-School

at

CHELSEY
By Young Gentlewomen.
The Words Made by Mr. NAT. TATE.
The Musick Composed by Mr. Henry Purcell.

Only a

now

single

copy of this publication is known, and that is

of the Royal College of Music. As the

in the Library

opera was probably performed for the

first

time in 1689 or

reasonable to suppose that this libretto, though

1690,
was
undated,
published at the same time. This dating is
borne out by the fact that the Epilogue that Thomas D'Urfey
it is

specially

wrote for

this

school production and

which has

the following specific reference to the Revolution of 1688-89 :

Rome may allow

But we

strange Tricks to please her Sous,

are Protestants and English Nuns

New Poems published in

to
wait
over
ten years for its first
1690.
was
which
professional performance,
given in 1700 at the
Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields by Thomas Betterton's
was included in a

collection entitled

The opera had

company

in the course

Measure for Measure.

four years.

By

The opera

of a production of Shakespeare's
then Purcell had been dead for over

libretto

was included in the quarto

edition of the play published the same year; and this version
differs from the earlier text in certain material ways.

At

this

point a

word should be

said

about the

opera. As has been pointed out above, the

title

of the

original libretto

New Light on

'Dido and Aeneas'

though it is possible that the text of the libretto

have
been
may
preceded by a title-page now lost. Dido and
Aeneas is definitely mentioned as the title of the opera in
is untitled,

D'Urfey's published Epilogue. In the Measure for Measure

quarto the title is The Loves of Dido and Aeneas, and the work
is subtitled a
masque. When it was revived in 1704 for at
least

two performances

were independent of Measure

that

for Measure, the advertisements referred to it as the Masque

of Aeneas and Dido. The fact that the title given to the opera

in the Tenbury MS. is The Loves ofAeneas and Dido may mean
that the score from which this MS. was copied was the one
for these 1704 performances at Lincoln's
specially prepared

Inn

Fields.

Although the 1700

text

of the

libretto has

been public

property for over two and a half centuries, no one interested

in English opera generally and Dido and Aeneas in particular

seems to have paid any special attention to it. Either its

existence has been ignored; or where it has been known,

comment

has been inaccurate and misleading. For instance,

Cummings in his preface to the Purcell Society edition of the

score mentioned the fact that

had

at times

some of the pieces

in the opera

been 'divorced from the work and introduced

into stage plays, without regard to their appropriateness; for

example, "Fear no danger" was thrust into Shakespeare's

Measure for Measure, as may be seen from a copy of the

music of the duet published in 1700'. This is a misunderstanding. The number in question was published by Walsh
as an extract from the opera as played in this special produc-

tion of Measure for Measure. Alfred

Loewenberg in

his

Annals of Opera (1943) stated that Dido and Aeneas 'was given
as an interlude in C. Gildon's version of Measurefor Measure .
This

is

implies that the opera was

will be seen, Gildon did
play.

inaccurate in so far as

given between

acts

of the

it

As

New Light

iS

his best to integrate

it

on 'Dido and Aeneas

was
of the

into the action. Harold Child

when in his note on the stage history

the Cambridge
for
Shakespeare in 1922)
play (written
he said that Gildon's adaptation 'was so successful as to
nearer the truth

New

be given eight times, largely owing, perhaps, to the four

"entertainments of musick" (three of them taken from
PurcelTs Dido and Aeneas) with which it was diversified*.
But even here Child was at fault in that he failed to realize
that the fourth entertainment
libretto for
set

was an

integral part

of Tate's

Dido and Aeneas, though whether or not

by Purcell

is

it

was

moot point. Edward J. Dent (in Foundations

of English Opera, 1928) realized that Dido and Aeneas was

'inserted as a masque into Gildon's adaptation of Measure for
9

but implied that it was given only once in that

form, whereas in fact it was not only performed several
times during the 1700 season, but was revived on its own at
Measure

the Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1704 and may have

at the newly built Queen's Theatre in the

been played

Haymarket when Measure for Measure was revived there

in 1706. *

During the

last

quarter of the seventeenth century, the

theatre in Dorset Garden,

had

built for the

Duke's

which

Sir

Christopher

Wren

Men

in 1673, served as the chief

centre of operatic production in London; and it was there
that Purcell's dramatic operas, The Prophetess, King Arthur,

and The Fairy Queen, were produced in the early 1690$.

By 1695, the year of Purcell's death, however, the fortunes
of the Theatre had started to wane; and in that year too
1

This latter performance is rather doubtful, however, since the advertisement specifies 'Measure for Measure written by the famous Beaumont and Fletcher with the Masque of Acis and Galatea', &c., and this

may mean

that Acis and Galatea took the place of The Loves of Dido
and Aeneas, though there would be nothing unusual in adding an extra
masque as an afterpiece.

New Light on 'Dido and Aeneas

ip
Betterton, who had been acting with the United Companies
moved to
number of experienced players,
leaving a comparatively young and immature company
behind at Drury Lane. He erected a theatre by subscription
at the

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, since 1682,

Lincoln's Inn Fields with a

within the walls of Lisle's Tennis Court, and opened with a

new play by "William Congreve, Love for Love. The com-

between the two companies was keen. One of the

things the Drury Lane players did was to transfer some

petition
first

of PurcelTs semi-operas from Dorset Garden, adding

The Prophetess to their repertory in 1697 and King Arthur
in 1698. (There is no record of a revival of The Fairy Queen

when only a single act was perbecause

the score seems to have been
formed, presumably
mislaid shortly after PurcelTs death.) Lincoln's Inn Fields
at

Drury Lane

until 1703,

by mounting opera too. The rivalry between the

two houses is referred to in a Dialogue called A Comparison
between the Two Stages (1702), which has sometimes been
retaliated

(erroneously) attributed to Gildon:

Sullen

and

The Opera now possesses the Stage [i.e.

after a

hard Struggle, at length

it

prevail' d,

at

Drury Lane]

and something

more than Charges came in every Night: The Quality, who are
always Lovers of good Musick, flock hither, and by almost a
total revolt from the other House, give this new Life, and set it
in

some eminency above the New;

this

was a sad mortification

to the old Stagers in Lincolns-Inn-FieUs, but at length they too

Critic. Nay, there I will prevent you good Mr. Sullen; I must
this
Speech. At last, (as you say) the old
of
a
moulded
Pastry work of their own, and made a
Stagers
piece

have the Honour of

kind of Lenten Feast with

their Rinaldo

not only Drury-Lane, but indeed

dreaming of an Opera there.

all

& Armida;

the

this surpriz'd

Town, no body

ever

The piece of pastry-work referred to was Rinaldo and Armida

New Light on

20

'Dido and Aeneas'

Eccles to a libretto
(with music by John

by John Dennis,

followed two years later by The Loves of

1698) and this was
Dido and Aeneas.
The rivalry between the two houses expressed itself also
;

in choice of plays. Betterton

was

particularly

successful in

Ben Jonson. To
Drury Lane retaliated with
A Comparison between the Two Stages:
quote once more from
Shakespeare:

D. Lane to a nonlucky hit ofBattertons put

rais'd at die New-house, and he
was
Ghost
plus: Shakespear's
Then
seem'd to inhabit it for ever: What's to be done then?
Sullen. Well, this

the Alchymist, and Silent Woman,

they
who had lain twenty years in Peace, they drew up these in
Battalia against Harry the 4th and Harry the 8th, and then the
fell

to task

on the Fox,

Now do you proceed

The Battel continued a long time doubtful, and Victory
Batterton Sollicits for some Auxiliarhovering over both Camps,
ies from the same Author, and then he flanks his Enemy with
Fight began.
Critic.

Measure for Measure.

Measure for Measure, or, Beauty the Best Advocate, a Very

alter'd' version of Shakespeare's play 'with additions

much

of several Entertainments of Musick' was acted by Betterin

company at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre early

from Vienna
1700. The plot was altered, the scene changed

ton's

to Turin, and the

comic

characters

omitted, their place being taken

by

and low-life scenes

the musical entertain-

ments. Although the adaptor's name was not given on the

the quarto that was published that summer, he
title-page of

have been Charles Gildon from an advertisement appended to Gildon's Loves Victim (1701) which ran

is

known

to

as follows:

Measure for Measure a

by Mr.

Gildon.

Comedy alter'd from Beaumont & Fletcher

New Light on

'Dido and Aeneas

21

Subsequent Shakespearian adaptations at Lincoln's Inn

Fields included The Merchant of Venice, altered by George

Lord Lansdowne, and retitled The Jew of Venice

contained a masque of Peleus and Thetis,
which
(1701),
and a dull and vulgar version of Twelfth Night by William
Burnaby called Love Betray d (1703). This too was intended
Granville,

to include a masque,

though it appears to have been omitted

in actual performance.

The Loves ofDido and Aeneas was inserted into the action of
Measure for Measure

as if it

were

masques. The whole of Tate's

masque, or succession of
that

libretto

is

the three-act

opera together with the classical-pastoral prologue was

worked into the text of Gildon's adaptation in the form of
four separate entertainments, the first, second and third
entertainments (roughly equivalent to Acts I, II, and III of
the opera) being introduced as a series of diversions played
before Angelo in Act I, Scene i, Act II, Scene 2, and Act III,

Scene

i,

respectively,

and the fourth entertainment

(viz.

the classical-pastoral prologue of the libretto) coming after

at the end of the play. Although the first three enterAct

tainments are placed near the end of their particular scenes,

the action is resumed, however briefly, at the end of each
entertainment 'Begin the Opera, the Deputy attends', says

Lucio; and that

is

the cue for the

first

entertainment, at the

Musick is no Cure for my

'em
begin', cries Angelo at the
Distemper
and when it is over,
of
the
second
entertainment;
beginning
he pursues a striking analogy between Dido and Isabella:
end of which Angelo
5

Sec.

says, 'This

'Come

let

All will not do: All won't devert

The Wound

enlarges

by

my Pain,

these Medicines,

She alone can yield the Healing Balm.

This Scene just hits my case; her Brothers danger,
'Tis

Is

here the storm must furnish Blest occasion;

New Light on

22

But when,
I

'Dido and Aeneas

my Dido,

I've possessed thy

then will throw thee from

And

think

no more on

Charms,

my glutted Arms,

thy soothing Harms.

all

At the beginning of the third entertainment Angelo again

commands 'Let them begin' and then comments 'No
Isabella yet?'

stage direction follows: 'They all

sit,

and

the

Third Musick. Before 'tis quite done, Isabella enters! The final
chorus 'With drooping wings' is followed immediately by

Angelo's comment,
'I

see

This

my Ev'ning
is

no place

Star of

to try

Love appear.

my last Effort',

Sec.

Even the fourth entertainment, which comes

end of the

play,

is

right at the

followed by a brief eight-line speech of

the Duke's.

This

technique

recalls

the

way Elkanah

Settle

and

Matthew Locke introduced the masque of Orpheus and

Euridice into The Empress of Morocco (1673) at the climax of
Orpheus and Euridice was a

the action; but whereas

complete operatic scene in itself and was played without a

break, there can be no doubt that in the case of Gildon's
adaptation the dramatic scheme of Dido and Aeneas was
adversely affected by the necessity of separating the acts

chunks of Shakespeare's play. So it is not

that
surprising
shortly afterwards The Loves of Dido and

with

substantial

Aeneas was divorced from Measure for Measure and presented

on its own at Lincoln's Inn Fields as a masque following The
Anatomist on 29 January 1704 and The
8
April the same year.

Nor were

Man

of

Mode on

the exposition and unfolding of the action of

by a transposition of two scenes, for which

the opera helped

Gildon was presumably responsible. In Tate's original

libretto the action runs as follows :

New Light on

'Dido and Aeneas'

Prologue, Scene i
Scene 2

Act

Act

I,

II,

Scene

Scene i
Scene 2

Act

El, Scene i

By

23

the Sea

The Grove
The Palace
The Cave
The Grove
The Ships

But

in Gildon's adaptation, Scenes I and 2 of Act II are

transposed, the two scenes in their reversed order forming

the whole of the second entertainment. This transposition is

such an error from the dramatic point of view that one
naturally

wonders

why he

should have countenanced

it.

One

possible explanation is that there are certain stage

effects in the Cave scene that may have made it preferable

for that scene to follow the

Grove scene

in the Lincoln's

Inn Fields production. In the 1700 quarto, the Cave scene

opens with the stage direction, The Cave rises. The Witches
'

appear

At

the

After the Echo Dance of Furies, there is the direction,

end of the Dance Six Furies sinks. The four open the

Cave fly up'. * Specific directions regarding rising, sinking and

flying are not to be found at this point in the 1689 libretto,
presumably because only a limited range of stage

effects

possible in Mr. Priest's School. But it is clear from the

stage directions in Rinaldo and Armida, which was played in

was

the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre towards the end of 1698,

that after its recent adaptation the stage there was fully

equipped for rising, sinking, and flying effects. In fact,

incidental music was sometimes played under the stage, as
appears from a direction 'The Serpent and Bases softly under
1

This stage direction gives a fascinating glimpse of the choreographer's intentions for the Echo Dance. The misprint *open' r most
probably meant for 'over*, suggests that there may have been four
dancers above the roof of the cave, imitating a bar later the movements of the six dancers on the floor of the stage; their gestures, clearly
defined against the sky, conveying a visual 'echo'.
[Editor.]

New Light on

24

and

the Stage,

'Dido and Aeneas

device could also -have been used in

this

The Loves of Dido and Aeneas for the Echo Dance of the
Furies. In any case, it may have been more convenient from
the standpoint of stage management at Lincoln's Inn Fields
for the Cave scene to follow the Grove scene, so that the
sinking and flying and rising and echo effects could come
at the end of this particular entertainment rather than in the

middle.

This contention seems to be supported by the Tenbury

MS., where the layout of the action (the Prologue being
absent)

is as

follows:

Act

I,

Scene

Scene 2

Act n, Scene
Act IH, Scene

i
i

The Palace
The Cave
The Grove
The Ships

Cave scene had been restored to its rightful

in
the original score, while the stage directions for
place
flying and sinking remained in the Tenbury MS. the
It

looks as if the

direction after the

Echo Dance of Furies is 'Thunder and

The Furies sink down in the Cave
it still seemed convenient to make the

1
Lightning horrid Mustek.
9

the Rest fly

so

up

end of the Cave scene the place for an act division, or (as the
Tenbury MS. specifies) 'The End of the first part'. This is
probably the

way

the opera was given at the two 1704

Inn Fields mentioned above.

at Lincoln's

performances
Various persons have drawn attention to the apparently
unset chorus and dance at the end of Act II. In Tate's 1689
libretto the passage runs as follows:

The
Cho.

A
1

Sorceress

Then

and her

Inchanteress.

our Charmes have Sped,

Dance
be led
Merry
since

Rinaldo andArmida also has the stage direction,

9
ning, and Horrid Mustek alternately .

'

Thunder and Light-

for
tt* &*

*re

k#l, fc* tiseufcr

Cfeftfot,
OaJtf

Mot&tam

&* iummmi
j.

tttee

mt WtsU mm.

<

ttwmttft fivffa

Jove Cmmmfa
Jin L&ties

ajjMtr

tU

ifcee,

Migfat faji

Prmw H#*i

tSe

wnd T
n be

To JMgfc

OMT

Jwbwsjbw

te

wt

Mtttfrim bfr Arm Pmfgtft to fart,

Bo ctatfo kar$ a Fatt
*

e-fffft
ff,

Fr

a Er,

Smt-bwt

tuttd

ttyt*

frimfa^ wkat Cfa&s to matef

md Fame

fagetkf freji iwj,

Kefifkf* Jovt
Zto Z?tf

Ifmow hit a Glorious frrff,

Fr

Fr.

A pa^e from Gildon's adaptation of Measure for Measure (1700), showing part
of the additional scene in Dido and Aeneas. (Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees

I.

of the British Museum.)

New Light on
the

By

'Dido and Aeneas'

Nymplis of Carthage to please

They shall all Dance to ease us.

A Dance that shall make the Spheres

25

us.

to

wonder,

Rending these fair Groves asunder.

The Groves Dance.

Dent

(in Foundations of English Opera) gave it as his opinion

that 'the inconclusive tonality' of Aeneas's preceding recitative, with which the act at present ends, 'suggests that

may have

originally intended to set the chorus, but

out, feeling that the despair of Aeneas made a
dramatic end to the act'. Dent did not see anything

Purcell

perhaps cut

more

it

unstylistic in this extraordinarily non-classical procedure,

though he regretted Purcell did not 'contrive his recitative

so as to end the act in the key in which it began*.
Benjamin Britten went further than Dent. After he had
made a special realization of the score for the English Opera
Group revival of the opera during the Festival of Britain,
1951, he issued a statement (dated 4 April 1951) in which he
said:

Anyone who has taken part in, or indeed heard a concert or stage
performance, must have been struck by the very peculiar and
most

unsatisfactory

end of this Act

n as

it

Aeneas sings

stands;

minor and disappears without

very beautiful recitative in
any curtain music or chorus (which occurs in all the other acts).
The drama cries out for some strong dramatic music, and the

his

whole key scheme of the opera (very carefully adhered to in

each of the other scenes) demands a return to the key of the
beginning of the act or its relative major (D minor or F major).

What is more, the contemporary printed libretto

has perfectly

with the Sorceress and her Enchantresses, consisting of six lines of verse, and a dance to end the act.
It is my considered
opinion that music was certainly composed
to this scene and has been lost. It is quite possible that it will be
clear indications for a scene

found, but each year makes

CHP

it less

likely.

New Light on

26

Britten's solution

was

to turn the

a trio for the Sorceress and

The Indian Queen

two

lines

became

'Dido and Aeneas^

first

four lines of verse into

two witches based on

a trio

from

to
minor; the last
(c. 1690) transposed
a chorus to music borrowed from the last

of the nine Welcome Songs (1687) transposed to D major;

and the dance was set to a movement in F major from the
Overture to Sir Anthony Love (1690). (Similarly for the
Mermaid Theatre productions of 1951, 1952, and 1953,
Geraint Jones drew music for the missing chorus and dance

from other

Purcell works.)
point that The Loves of Dido and Aeneas as
the
Measure for Measure quarto provides fresh
in
printed
evidence of what may have been the contemporary solution
It is at this

of

this

problem. After the passage of Aeneas's recitative

ending
Yours be the Blame, ye Gods, for I,
Obey your will but with more ease cou'd dye

come four lines, also for Aeneas, each of which is introduced

with double quotation marks, showing they were to be
omitted in performance and, presumably, not to be set to
music.
"Direct me, friends, what Choice to make,
Since Love and Fame together press me,

"And with

equal Force distress me.

"Say what Party

I shall take.

Here follows a duet for two

not appear in the original

friends

libretto.

of Aeneas, which does

There

is

an occasional

interjection by Aeneas, which almost raises the status of this

musical number from that of a duet to a trio. Dramatically
it is of considerable
importance, as it emphasizes the difficult
nature of the choice with which Aeneas is faced and gives it
appropriate musical form. (Attention is drawn to the fact

New Light on
that, apart

'Dido and Aeneas

27

from the quatrain for Aeneas given above, no

marked for omission.)

further lines are

1 Fr. Resistless
Jove

Fr.

Commands

But Love

More

Resistless

Aen. But

then Jove's.

Fame Alcander.

2 Fr. Fame's a Bubble,

Honour but a Glorious Trouble,
A vain Pride of Destroying,

Alarming and Arming,

And Toiling and Moiling,

And never Enjoying.
1 Fr.

'Twas that gave

Hector,

2 Fr. What?
1 Fr.

Renown and Fame.

An empty Name,
And Lamentable Fate.

Fr.

1 Fr.

'Twas Noble and Brave.

'Twas a Death for a Slave.

Fr.

His Valour and GloryShall flourish in Story.

2 Fr. "While he rots in his Grave.
1 Fr.

Aen.

Ye

Sacred Powers instruct

When Love
Aen.

&

me how

to choose,

or Empire I must loose.

Cho. Love without Empire TrifBing is and Vain,

without Love a Pompous Pain.

And Empire

Exeunt.

At

this
point comes the stage direction 'Enter Sorceress and
Witches, and the chorus 'Then since our Charmes have Sped*

follows as in the original 1689 libretto.

It is
interesting to find this duet/trio introduced at this

As it does not appear in the original libretto

two extra men's voices would have been in-

particular spot.

and

as the

convenient for the original

girls'

school production,

it

New Light on

28

'Dido and Aeneas

Tate either suppressed

this passage in 1689 or

the
for
professional performance in 1700.
specially
musical
to
It
density to Aeneas, who in the school
helps
give
a
was
light-weight character, confined to
production

is

likely that

added

it

a complete vindication of Britten's

inspired guess that the exigencies of musical form called for

and

recitative;

it

is

some sort of ensemble at this point.

The only other important textual change in the libretto of
Dido and Aeneas as printed in the 1700 quarto comes in
the fourth entertainment. This is substantially the same as the
classical-pastoral prologue of Tate's original libretto; but the

duet between a
with
and
chorus
country shepherd
shepherdess
being moved
to an earlier position immediately following Venus's
material

final
slightly rearranged, the

is

couplet
Smiling Hours are

Hours

that

may

now

return

before you,

no more.

After the chorus ending

Prepare those soft returns to Meet,
That makes Loves Torments Sweet.

the

Nymphs' Dance is

there

is

new

cut,

episode

and in place of the removed duet

between Mars and Peace

a duet

with antiphonal choruses supplied by

their attendants. This

provides a much stronger ending, in the classical as opposed

to the pastoral vein. The new material runs as follows:
Enter

Mars and his Attendants, on one

on the

side,

other.

Mar. Bid the Warlike Trumpet sound

Conquest waits with Lawrel crown' d,

Conquest
Glorious

is

the Hero's due.

Triumph

will ensue.

Peace and her Train

New Light on
J

Peace. Tis

'Dicto

time for War's alarms to

And Heroes crown'd with

and Aeneas

cease,

spoils,

Enjoy the Harvest of their toils,

And reap the happy Fruits of Peace.
Mar. & his Train Cho. No, no the love would have
Fame and Honour answer No.
Peace. Wherefore must the Warriour be
!

To

restless

29

it

so

Tasks assign'd,

Give others those delights which he

Must never hope to find,

Shall he, whose valour gain'd

The Prize in rough alarms,

Be still condemn' d to arms,

And from a
Mar. Cho. Yes,

Victors share detain'd.

yes.

Peace. Cho.

No, no.
Mar. Cho. Fame, fame will have it so.
Peace. Cho. Love and Reason answer no.
Peace. Must he with endless toils be prest,

Nor with

Who

repose himself be blest,

gives the

Mar. Cho. Yes,

weary Nations

rest.

yes.

No, no.
Love, Reason, Honour,

Peace. Cho.

All.

Cho. Since

it is

all

Let's all agree to

will

have

Wars should

decreed that

welcome

it so.

cease,

Peace.

The grand Dance.

In considering the problem of whether or not another
composer was called in to complete the score in 1700, one

should remember that the

ments

as

at the

given
an4 Aeneas, a Mask,

full

description

head of the

first is

of these entertain'The Loves of Dido

in Four Musical Entertainments

There
any part of the text of these entertainments, with the exception of the four lines in the Grove

is

no suggestion

that

'.

New Light

j0

on 'Dido and Aeneas

scene that were specially marked for omission, was not set
to music. Furthermore, the Prologue to Measure for Measure,

which was written by John Oldmixon and spoken by

Betterton, goes out of its way to mention by name and pay
homage to the composer. At first Betterton chides the
audience for their fickle attendance at the Lincoln's Inn
Fields Theatre:

we all Meanes have us'd;

please this Winter,
Old Playes have been Reviv'd, and New pro due' d.
But you, it seems, by Us, wou'd not be Serv'd;
And others Thrive, while we were almost Starved.
To

After continuing in this vein for some time, he comes to a

close; and a stage direction makes it clear he is about to

make his

when, suddenly remembering something he'd

comes back and delivers this final triplet:
he
forgotten,
exit

Hold;

No

forgot the Business of the Day;

more than

*Tis Purcels

Here

is as

clear

this,

We,

Musick, and

for our Selves, need Say,

'tis

an indication

Shakespears Play.

as possible that Purcell

was

the composer of the music to these parfully accepted

ticular entertainments.
as

As against this, however, the Tenbury MS. has no music

for the Prologue at all, and in the Grove scene the music
stops dead after Aeneas's final line of recitative, being
followed by the scribe's subscription "The End of the 2d
Act'. This comes on a recto sheet; and the Prelude to the

third act follows

on the verso. Clearly the copyist had no

was any gap in the music at this point.

suspicion that there

This might be accounted for

by

the fact that the extra

music for the trio/duet and chorus, having been written by

another hand, was inserted into Purcell's
original score for

New Light on

'Dido and Aeneas

31

purposes of theatrical performance, but withdrawn before

the score was handed over to the copyist.

But if Purcell was not the composer of the missing parts of

the score,

who

in fact was?

There seems to be no need to look outside the Purcell

family for an answer. Since Henry's death in 1695, Daniel
Purcell

had been much preoccupied with composition for

first
place, he wrote the music for a masque

the stage. In the

of

Hymen

to complete his brother's score for

The Indian

Queen. In 1696 he set the lyrical passages in an extraordinary

dramatic concoction written by George Powell and John

Verbruggen and produced at Dorset Garden. This was

called Brutus of Alba. Part of the action was based on Tate's
earlier tragedy of the same name; but it also had passages of
dynastic pageantry recalling Albion and Albanius (1685) of
Grabu and Dryden, and various commedia deTarte episodes.
The following year (1697) he composed music for another
dramatic opera, Cinthia and Endimion, written by D'Urfey
at Drury Lane. In 1698 he set an ode by Tate
on the Death of Henry Purcell, and
Lamentation
entitled

and produced

in the same year provided incidental music for a tragedy of

Gildon's entitled Phaeton. In the latter case, the playwright

was

by the composer's contribution that he

encomium
in the preface to the printed text:
special

so delighted

wrote a

But the Music was

tell me
my own bare Sentiment) that there is the

so admirable, that the best Judges

as
(for I dare not give it
true Purcellian Air through the

ferent in the several Acts, it

is

whole: that tho'

it

be so very

dif-

every where Excellent; and that Mr.

Daniel Purcelk Composition in this

Pky

is

a certain Proof, that

Mr. Henry Purcel will never die; or our

long
English harmony give place to any of our Neighbours.
as

as

he

lives

Only a few weeks before the production of Measure for

New Light on

$2

'Dido and Aeneas

Measure in 1700, the dramatic opera The Grove had its

at Drury Lane with music by Daniel
first
performance
Purcell to a libretto by Oldmixon.
All these close links with the librettist of Dido and Aeneas

and with the adapter of

Epilogue,
Measure for Measure and the author of its Prologue, make
for The Loves
it evident that if extra music had been needed
the
most
was
Purcell
Daniel
likely person
of Dido and Aeneas,
to be asked. Furthermore, it seems that the setting of Tate's

and the author of

its

in whole or in part) would

masque-like prologue (whether
have been particularly congenial to him, since in 1700 he

decided to enter for a competition that had just been

announced in the London Gazette with four prizes of 100,

and 20 guineas for the best settings of Congreve's

and in due course won the third
masque The Judgment ofParis,
first on its own, and then
his version
50, 30,

being presented,

prize,

with the other three winning scores, at Dorset Gardenin 1701.

One should also bear in mind that it was doubtless from the
herself that the
probably from the widow
Theatre
Fields
acquired
management of the Lincoln's Inn
the score of Dido and Aeneas for their 1700 production; and
that would have made it easy for Daniel Purcell to have

Purcell family

access to

it.

the 1700 text

Apart from the two passages quoted above,
corrects
It
material.
does not contain any new
many of the
a few of its
adds
and errors in the 1689 edition, but

misprints-

own. The opening number of Act

Saylors',

is

III,

ascribed to the Sorceress

'Come away Fellow-

and not to the Chorus

as

in the 1689 libretto or the 1st Sailor as in the Tenbury MS.

the 1700 text prints the fourth line
is
interesting to find
(It

of this number

on the Shore

as

'Take a Bouze short; leave your Nymphs

Tenbury MS. 'Take a boozy

instead of the

short leave of your

nymphs of the

shore',

which sounds

as

New Light on
if it

had been deliberately

'Dido and Aeneas

altered

by

33

Purcell for the sake

of

melodic euphony.) The number of dances is reduced from

seventeen to ten, the display of the dancers' talents being no
longer so important a factor as

it

had been

at Priest's

School

in 1689.

Although the 1700 quarto gives the Measure for Measure

nothing about the cast for The Loves of Dido and
Aeneas. In this connexion, a document from the Sackville
(Knole) MSS. quoted by Sybil Rosenfeld in an article on
1
'Unpublished Stage Documents' is of importance. It
cast, it says

mentions the Lincoln's Inn Fields

on 20 July 1695

fifteen actors

Company

and a dozen

as

containing
and in

actresses,

addition:

Mr Downes
Mr Prince
r
\K -R
Mr
Bray
Mr Pate
Mr Reading

Prompter

^
Dancers

Singers

Mrs Hodgson
The 4 Scene Keepers
Mrs. Hodgson, who played Aglaia in The Loves of Mars
and Venus, a play set to music by G. Finger and Eccles
and inserted into Edward Ravenscroft's farce The Anatomist
(Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1696),

was

certainly

still

in the

com-

pany during the 1699-1700 season; and it seems not ionreasonable to think she may have sung the role of Dido. The
only other likely candidate was the actress Mrs. Bracegirdle, whose singing was specially singled out for praise
by John Downes in Roscius Anglkanus (1708) but as she was
cast for Isabella in Measure for Measure, it would have been
Dido as well. It
physically impossible for her to have sung
;

appears from an advertisement in the Daily Courant that

1

Theatre Notebook, Vol. XI, 1956-7.

New Light on

34

Mrs. Hodgson sang

'Dido and Aeneas

at Lincoln's

Inn Fields on 23 March

1704; so there is good reason to think that she also appeared

Dido in the 1704 revival. As for the men, both Mr.
Reading and Mr. Pate had sung in The Fairy Queen, so
as

they were familiar with PurcelTs operatic idiom. Mr. Pate,

however, was with the Drury Lane company early in 1699,
when he and Leveridge sang a dialogue in the third act of

The

Island Princess;

member of

and four seasons

the same company,

as

he was still a
from
a Drury
appears
later

Lane announcement dated

February 1703 advertising
'an extraordinary Consort of Musick by the best Masters in

which Mr. Pate (having recover'd his Voice) will perform

several songs in Italian and English'. So perhaps it was Mr.
Reading who was cast as Aeneas.
The extra music that was used in The Loves of Dido and
Aeneas in 1700 does not appear to have survived. It is even
doubtful whether it was carried over into the 1704 revivals,

of any consciousness on the part of the

Tenbury MS. scribe that there were omissions in the score
from which he was copying. It is always possible that this
for there

is

no

extra music

trace

turn up; but the likelihood now seems

Meanwhile, any modern edition of the

may

rather remote.

opera (such as Britten's) that attempts to fill the gaps in the

score as it has come down to us with appropriate music by
Purcell

is

to

be welcomed

as

a step

towards the

fuller

of the true nature of the operatic masterpiece that

Tate and Purcell planned and created together.

realization

4
Purcell's Librettist,

Nahum

Tate

IMOGEN HOLST

No

one writing about PurcelTs dramatic music can escape

mentioning the fact that he never wrote another real opera
after Dido and Aeneas. The statement has been made over and
over again, in tones varying from mild regret to passionate
vexation. In an article written in 1927 for The Heritage of

Music

my

'crime' for

But

it is

went so far as to say that it was a

had not been sufficiently blamed.
hard to blame a composer for having

father even

which

surely a

Purcell

little

to earn

enough to live on. Opera in seventeenth-century

England was no more a paying proposition than it is today.
'Ah, Mony, Mony !' sighs the writer of the Prologue to
D'Avenant's Siege of Rhodes, and his words have a familiar
ring, in spite of their period flavour, when he goes on to
wish that his patrons would

Which Faction

gets

half that Treasure spare,

to nourish War.

from Fools

Audiences in the sixteen-nineties wanted stage plays with

'Singing, Dancing and Machines interwoven with 'ern',

managers gave them what they were used to,

steering a safe middle course and taking it for granted that
the general public were not able to digest an entire opera.

and

theatrical

If Dido and Aeneas

performance by

had not been commissioned for a private

it
might never have been written:

amateurs

PurcelTs Librettist,

36
it

had

Nahum

to be disguised as a series

Tate

of interludes for

its first

in 1700.
public performance on the professional stage
PurcelTs 'crime* was that he agreed to make the best of a
bad job, giving his audiences a taste of opera "to try their
Palats* by
providing superb incidental music for more than
forty plays that were soon to be swept aside and forgotten.
The operatic societies who now give concert performances

of the musical interludes in The Fairy Queen, King Arthur,

and Diodesian must feel frustrated almost beyond endurance

when

they have to stand stock still during scenes that are

meant to be acted. Yet stage productions can be just as
in the works.
frustrating, owing to the lack of unity

The

astonishing unity of Di do and Aeneas is often mentioned, but Tate's share in it has seldom been acknowledged.

He was PurcelTs only real librettist in our sense of the word.

If we could find his first rough draft of the libretto of Dido,
with PurcelTs comments in the margin, it might prove almost as revealing as the discovery of the lost autograph
score of the music.

In planning the work as a whole, and dividing it into

scenes, Tate and Purcell must surely have been influenced

by what they remembered of Blow's Venus and

Adonis.

There are the obvious resemblances, such as in the final

chorus of mourning Cupids and in the dialogue between the
hero and heroine, where he protests that he has changed his

mind and will stay with her, and she drives him away against
her

own

inclination.

There are the same swift changes of

mood, when one scene leads straight to the next with a

suddenness that some twentieth-century critics still find too
abrupt. And there is the same admirable directness in the
choice of words.
It

would be easy

that Tate

to fall into the temptation of thinking

had a hand in the libretto of Venus and
have
might

Purcell's

Nahum

Librettist,

Tate

37

was collaborating with Blow in 1679. But

no evidence for this. What is certain, from the
evidence of Dido, is that Tate knew what was wanted in a
libretto. He had learnt that music was 'the exaltation of
poetry', and, unlike Dry den, he felt no need to complain

Adonis, since he

there

is

about having to cramp

to

make
If

his verses or to

apologize for having

his art subservient to PurcelTs.

we pour

on

scorn

footed or naive

it is

his lines

enough musical imagination

We are inclined to
are reading

condemn

as flat-

are not equipped with

to realize their possibilities.

the words of the Prologue to

we have no

Dido just because

and describe them

we

because

tune to

fit

them

to while

we

them:
See the Spring in

Welcome Venus

all

Smiling Hours are

Hours

that

may

her Glory,

to the shore,

now before you,

return

no more.

Without any music the lines seem only half alive. But it
would be just as mistaken to complain that they are inadequate as it would be to complain about the apparent
banality

of the

Belinda. See,

lines for

Aeneas'

first

entry:

your Royal Guest appears

How God-like is the Form he bears.

Aeneas.

With

When, Royal
cares

Fair, shall I

of Love and State

be

blest,

distrest?

Dido. Fate forbids what

you Ensue.
no Fate but you.
and Tie defie

Aeneas. Aeneas has

Let Dido smile,

The Feeble Stroke of Destiny,

In these eight lines the music exalts the libretto, but

libretto that has brought the music into being.

it is

the

On the professional stage this first entry of the hero would

Purcell's Librettist,

38
have had

all

there was no

Nahum

Tate

the splendour of a flourish of

trumpets.
to
for
money
trumpets and
spare

no room for them,

either

in

Mr.

Priest's

so Belinda conveys the excitement

But

probably
School at Chelsea,

of a fanfare in the actual

notes of her recitative:

Ex.1

Belinda

Continue

extraordinary power of dramatic characterization

can be recognized in the very first words that Aeneas
sings;
faced with having to make a
proposal of marriage in public,
the god-like Prince of Troy is as
reticent
tongue-tied as
Purcell's

any

Englishman; he is so overcome by emotion that he begins

his recitative too low down and has to start
again, a fourth

When Dido

him that Fate is against them he

immediately becomes more confident: as a soldier, he feels
on firmer ground with an enemy to face. There is the
higher.

gesture of a

tells

drawn sword in his

rising phrase:

it is

strength-

ened by the wide-mouthed, bright insistence of the

repeated

vowel

T in the line
Let Dido smile and Tie

defie,

PurceWs

where Purcell

seizes

ness in poetry

Librettist,

Nahum

Tate

39

on what would be considered

and triumphantly turns

it

weak-

to musical ad-

vantage:
Ex.2
-fl

Aeneas
Let Di-do Smile, and Til

Continue

de -

fie,

The Fee

ble.

J.

of

stroke

Des -

ti-ny.

PurcelTs 'genius for

phrase is a wonderful example of
of
of
English words'; after the climax
expressing the energy

The

'defie',

in

the

word

'feeble' sinks

down with no

the

its

of

'stroke'

strength left
cuts across

curving spinelessness;
the cadence like a knife; while in the final word 'destiny', the

hero conveys his scorn in the low level of his voice, yet, at
the same time the harmonic resolution makes it quite clear
to the listener that Fate

tragedy that

Tate must

going to have the

last

word in the

beginning to unfold.
have learned a good deal

of Shakespeare,
to reach

is

is

from his adaptations

for
libretto
in
his
Purcell, he was able
for,

beyond the physical

barrier

of the three walls of

the stage, particularly at the unforgettable moment when the

Sorceress and her witches hear the distant sound of the
lines

to compare his original

royal hunt. It is interesting
with the even more dramatic version that Purcell has made

of the words.

Pwcell's Librettist,

40

Nahum

Tate

Tate wrote:

The Queen and He are now in

Hark,

how

the cry comes

on

Chase,

apace.

But when they've done, &c.

The word 'how'

he thought that the first

sound of the distant hunt would be heard at the end of that

line.

suggests that

But by cutting out the 'how', Purcell was able to give

his pianissimo strings their first horn-call before the isolated

'Hark!'

Grove

of approaching disaster is
already suggested in the libretto, with its references to the
tragic fates of Actaeon and Adonis. And, in the last act,
In the

when

scene, the sense

the disaster

is

reached, Tate never for an instant

two lovers to utter any of the conventional

platitudes that would have transformed them into puppets.
He has been ridiculed for giving Dido such unexpected
allows the

lines as:

Thus on the fatal Banks of Nile,

Weeps
But

it is brilliant

the deceitful Crocodile.

characterization. For

Dido

is

obviously
Cleopatra and other
desperate Queens have done the same sort of thing when the
occasion has arisen. The fact that Aeneas gives way to her

working

herself

up

into

a state:

makes matters worse, for she begins nagging him. 'I'm now
resolved as well as you' has the brittle self-assertion of one
whose nerves are strained beyond control.

The quarrel is so dramatically convincing that it is almost

too painful to listen to, especially when Dido is driven to the
fatal feminine weakness of
that
.
saying: 'Tis enough
'

of leaving me/ It is this that makes

the entry of the chorus at 'Great minds against themselves

you had once

a thought

Purcell's

Librettist,

Nahum

Tate

41

conspire' one of the most moving moments in the whole

work. Even the 'remember me' of the Lament owes some
of its poignancy to the way in which Dido's creators,
throughout the opera, have made her unforgettable as a

person. Every detail has helped, including that muchmaligned crocodile. And Tate must have his share of the
glory.

DEO?

Our Sense of Continuity in English

Drama and Music
MICHAEL TIPPETT

When

is

clear

it

considering the heritage of our musical past it

enough that we are contemplating a continuity, but

is also

clear that the continuity

This

so

is

whether

works by

we think of ourselves as

fits

and

starts.

Europeans or

as

English.

Although the rediscovery of Bach's music seems to have

been initially an accident, the tremendous and world-wide
revival has implied a general need to feed into the present a
music of the past; but a music which at Bach's death was

being forgotten and rejected

as old-fashioned. This is an
of
what
I
mean
by continuity by fits and starts.
example
I
the
of
revival
Purcell as less important than the
regard
revival of Bach, but it is a revival of the same kind. "We are

now

in a period when music of the generation before

Bach, the music of Schiitz and Purcell and even of the

generation earlier, the music of Monteverdi is being

revived to meet some need of our time. But as before, with

the music of Bach, it is only gradually that the revival

spreads from the enthusiasts and the small societies to the
general public. And, as before, it is not easy to make music
of so distant a past fit into the concerts of our day.
If through this revival PurcelTs music becomes a
living
thouglr small part of our general European heritage (for

Our Sense of Continuity

among English composers

in English

Drama and Music

43

only Purcell can be said to belong

it must form a very im-

to a living European continuity),

local English heritage. This is

portant part indeed of our
of great names in English
lack
the
of
because
not only
of the spoken language.
because
musical history, but also

By this I do

not mean so

much the

obvious

fact that

music

to English texts is naturally closer to English singers; I

mean that certain things in PurcelTs setting of English
words are vital to English composers. For, more than

anyone

needs a sense of continuity.

can be said that in English poetry the heritage

else,

Now it

the creative

artist

is

the richest, in English painting the poorest; and in English

music the heritage falls in between and is the least explored

explored in the sense that English poetry

is

always
being explored and revalued. Only English folk-song,
Tudor music, and the music of Purcell have so far given the
that

is

vital sense

And

of continuity

to latter-day English composers.

if the generation older

than

my own

has

more

fully

Tudor music, my own generation

explored folk-song and
has more fully explored the music of Purcell. And it is
also

our

later generation that has

come

to maturity at a

at last, there are regularly functioning English

in the capital. This makes it possible for
houses
opera
in the
of
our sense
continuity with Purcell to be helpful
not
indeed
is
so; though
by
writing of opera. I think this

time when,

of Purcell with opera.

any implied and thoughtless equation
The period of the most vital English theatre is clearly
vital
Elizabethan, not Restoration. The period of the most
the eighteenth century,
English opera productions is,
the period from Gay, Arne, Handel, to the London Bach.
that while the Elizabethan composers
It is a

commonplace

wrote music almost exclusively for the church and the house,
the Restoration composers wrote for the church and the

Our

44

Sense of Continuity in English

Drama and Music

we can say that his public musical life

out between church, theatre, and
stretched
triangular,
court. His church music follows on directly from that of

theatre.

As

to Purcell

is

Gibbons with one significant difference. Gibbons, grounded

Tallis and Byrd, wrote full verse anthems, as Purcell did

on

him, but Gibbons was still part and parcel of the

church musical reform which substituted English for Latin,
and insisted on the strict rule of one syllable to a note. It

after

took virtually two generations of English composers to

carry this out, but by the time Gibbons died the work was
complete.
At the same time the shape of anthems was changing; the
accompanied verse anthem reaching out towards the
cantata.

And here the work of reform was not

When

Purcell

began to compose

his

complete.

church music, the

English language, as opposed to Latin, was already the

normal one, but for his purposes it was unduly restricted

to an old rule of syllable-to-a-note; while the verse anthem
as

handed

down from Gibbons was

formal,

stiff,

and

contrapuntally too intricate to satisfy him. In the matter of

the English language Purcell broke away from the old

and wrote, when he wanted, coloratura for

words.
This was a decisive change of practice.
English
And in the matter of the changing forms he learnt to dramasyllabic rule,

tize the verse

anthem in

way denied to

Gibbons. This can

be seen in an instant by comparing 'This

John* with 'My Beloved spake'.

is

the Record of

not that Purcell was any more alive to the English

language than Tallis, Byrd, or Gibbons. If we believed that,
It is

it

would be

as if

we

Elizabethan tune like

failed to see the

*O

beauty of a

Mistress mine' because

dumpy
it

hasn't

the carry of 'Lilliburlero'. It is a different beauty arising

from a different purpose. The demands of the second Stuart

Our Sense of Continuity in English Drama and Music 45

court and capital were for a civic music with all the elegance,
and immediacy of Restoration manners. The
hand was an English version of that

frankness,

effective style at

only

which the
Soleil.

Italian-born Lully had invented for Le

for St. Cecilia's Day and the Birthday

The Odes

Welcome Odes form

demands of the

Roi
and

PurcelTs legacy in this genre. The

were for an unending stream of

theatre

rapidly-composed incidental music; overtures, dances,

all the
songs, dramatic monologues, choruses, and indeed
the
never
of
opera proper.
opera, though
ingredients
Dioclesian, The Fairy Queen, King Arthur, The Indian Queen,
and the rest of the long list bear witness to PurcelTs industry
in providing the unending streamIt is unthinkable that composers of

my generation, caught
not actual instigators of, the general revival of
PurcelTs music, should not feel a special sense of continuity
up

in, if

with

this Restoration

composer

composer. Failing an English opera

is. His dramatic

as such, Purcell is all that there

music, though incidental,

The

general style

is

wonderful in

its

own

right.

of his time had loosened the approach to

the language, and Purcell had the great gift to make full use
of this new freedom, without ever departing from the
to music,
absolutely natural technique of setting English

which had been handed on by the

Elizabethans.

So that

something the Elizabethans did not possess

the time the next great composer of English is

Purcell offers us
at

all.

By

is to say with the production of Handel's

whole scene has undergone another decisive
change, because Italian has become the universal language
for opera; and the English ballad opera has nothing to offer

writing, that
oratorios, the

us here. So Purcell stands at the only possible moment in

have done what
English musical history when a genius could

he did. Since he was

this genius

our sense of continidty with

46

Our

Sense of Continuity in English

Drama and Music

him, in respect of incidental music for the English theatre,

is vital.

There

is

a point to

make here

before

we proceed.

It

must

not be thought that Purcell used only coloratura in the

he needed to do so he could set
setting of English. When

words in as simple a manner as Gibbons. One has only to

think of the sustained line of Dido's Lament. The setting of
Tate's

is as
uncomplicated as anything from the
But what is unique is the placing and the timing.

words

earlier age.

The key-word 'remember'

own
way as to give the greatest sense of sustained

for the sake of its

placed in such a

not only used magnificently

verbal rhythm, but is repeated and
is

passion and climax. The nearest approach to this in music

from the earlier age would be some of the monologues of
Dowland. But Dowland's is basically private grief, and

PurcelTs

is

public and theatrical.

"With the single exception of Dido and Aeneas which is a

true opera, PurcelTs music for the theatre is incidental. It
the ingredients of opera, but the
it was written were not
theatrical pieces
operas.
That is to say that PurcelTs relations with the dramatists
offers, as I said before, all

for which

were never those of composer to

librettist.

From

this it

follows that while PurcelTs dramatic music provides us with

the only exhaustive compendium of musical techniques
for use in the English theatre, it does not provide us with any
models for that unification of drama with musical tech-

nique which we call opera. From every point of view this

is a loss; but it is as well to be
quite clear about it.
Part of what this loss means can be gauged, I think, by
following a line of thought suggested by a modern poetdramatist, T. S. Eliot, concerning Shakespeare. The matter
I have in mind
appears near the beginning of his published

essay Poetry and Drama. Eliot wants to abstract a dramatic

Our Sense of

Continuity in English

Drama and Music

47

element and a musical element from

verse play; and then to consider how the pattern of drama
of music (the music of poetry of course, not
and the
within the unified

pattern

correlated by the genius of

singing) has been
the poet-dramatist a practice very similar to the ideal
with librettist. To exemplify his
collaboration of

of playing or

composer

the "opening scene of Hamlet

argument Eliot analyses
scene as that of any play ever
as well constructed an

opening

which has the advantage of being one that everyof the Hamlet scene often reads
body knows'. Eliot's analysis
of a piece of music. To give
nearly like a figurative analysis
an extreme example; Eliot writes: 'It would be interesting

written

to pursue ... this problem of the double pattern in great

the pattern which may be examined from the
poetic drama
or from that of the music.'
of view of
stagecraft

point

for 'poetic drama, the word 'music' will

By
have the sense in which a composer uses it, not a poet.

reading 'opera'

have begun with this extreme example because it shows

the deceptive ease with which one may equate verse-drama
is
to opera. As the danger of consequent misunderstanding
to
Hamlet
the
analysis,
I should like, before
I

pursuing

real,

make

my

clear.

position
take Suzanne Langer's common-sense view that 'Every
work [of art] has its being in only one order of art; composibut all
tions of different orders are not simply conjoined,
This
are.
what
as
to
cease
they
appear
except one will
works
it
as
be
understood
to
is a vital one and needs
principle
out in practice. So I quote from Langer's exposition of what
I

happens to

plastic

art

and to music when used

as accessories

in a stage play. She says:

Drama

swallows

theatrical precinct,

sculptural beauties

and

all plastic

their

creations that enter into

own

do not add

pictorial,

themselves to

architectural,
its

own

its

or

beauty.

Our

48

Sense of Continuity in English

Drama and Music

work of

sculpture, say the original Venus of Milo,

great
to the comic or the 'tragic stage would count only
transported
element in the action and might not meet
as a
setting, an
stage

this

purpose

well as a pasteboard counterfeit of

as

it

would

do.

And

A song
action.

sung on the stage in a good play

If we receive it in

concert, the play

is

the theatre as

is

a piece of dramatic
it in a

we would receive

a pastiche.

think Langer states the fundamentals very clearly. If,

the order of the work of art is that of a play, then the
e.g.,
I

will eat up stage settings and music and even

to present us with a play, not an opera.
order
in
poetry
The complementary process Langer sums up neatly in

drama proper

one phrase: 'Music ordinarily swallows words and action

creating [thereby] opera, oratorio or song/
If we keep these primal distinctions in mind, we can
pursue profitably I think the analogies that do really exist
between verse-drama and opera. So that we can follow
Eliot's analysis of the Hamlet scerie with an eye to considering what can be learnt from it as to the double pattern of

drama and music

always keeping in mind that music in a

the music of poetry, and is to be eaten up by

the drama; while music in an opera is the music of instru-

verse-drama

is

ments and voices and

The

is

to

swallow the drama.

analysis begins:

From the short, brusque ejaculations at the beginning, suitable to

the situation and to the character of the guards ... the verse
glides into a slower movement with the appearance of the
courtiers Horatio

and Marcellus.

'

Horatio says Tis but our fantasy . and the movement changes
again on the appearance of Royalty, the ghost of the King, into
the solemn and sonorous What art thou, that usurp st this time of
.

Our

Sense of Continuity in English

Drama and Music

4g

There is an abrupt change to staccato in Horatio's

night
words to the Ghost on its second appearance; this rhythm changes
.

again with the words

We do
To

The scene reaches

It

it

wrong, being so majestical

it

offer

a show of violence

a resolution with the words of Marcellus:

faded on the crowing of the cock

Because of the use of words like slower movement' and

of the opening scene of an

opera, if we have deliberately turned our attention to that
This analysis of Eliot's, which I have of course
possibility.
'staccato' this reads like the analysis

aims at making us see how the movement of the

drama between the characters of the guards, the courtiers,
and the ghost, is matched by a movement of the nature and
speed of the verse just as in an operatic scene it is matched
by the nature and speed of the music.
"When Horatio says

curtailed,

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
Break we our watch up.
Eliot observes: 'This

is

besides being poetic

and dramatic

is

verse-drama.

It is

great poetry,

opera

and

it is

it is

dramatic; but

something more/

It

There emerges, when we analyse it, a kind of musical design also,

which reinforces and is one with the dramatic movement. It has
checked and accelerated the pulse of our emotion without our

knowing it.
This would be ideal opera

Note

that in these last

words of Marcellus there

is

brief emergence of the poetic into consciousness.

a deliberate

Our

50

Sense of Continuity in English

scena in recitativo strumentato

Drama and Music

goes over for a

moment

into arioso.

When we hear
But

the lines

look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

Walks oer

we are lifted for

the

dew of yon high

moment beyond

at this

an example for the timing and placing of the

within the scena

The

but with no sense

moment, from the

character,

of nnfitness of the words coming, and

of Horatio.
lips

What

eastern hill

arioso

transitions in the scene

obey laws of the music of dramatic

poetry.

Or

if

we

rewrite the sentence:

The

transitions in the scene

obey laws of the natural movement of dramatic music.

Eliot's

point

is

that only a master like Shakespeare can so

correlate the pattern

of the drama with the pattern of the

music of the poetry that they are indistinguishable; and so

create that something extra, which, if taken into musicdrama, we call great opera. Purcell, the master of dramatic
music, was only once in a position to create this true
correlation of the two patterns. This was in Dido and Aeneas.

What

he was asked to do on other occasions can be seen in

the music for The Fairy Queen; a set of five unrelated

masques, or divertissements, interlarded with a hotch-potch
version of

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Therefore

it is

useless

go to Purcell for the secrets of the true correlation

of music and drama even though he is the unique master of

for us to

English dramatic music for the theatre.

We

should do

even if we are composers not poets, to go to Shakesto pursue throughout whole plays the kind of
and
peare,
better,

analysis

which

Eliot has

made of one

scene. If

we were

Our

Sense of Continuity in English

Drama and Music

51

a poet might be, to disentangle the

enough,
musical pattern of the verse in order to lay it alongside the
correlative pattern of the drama between the characters,

skilled

as

we might find that living continuity of our heritage which

we cannot hope to find in PurcelTs incidental music owing
to

its

unavoidable limitations.

The continuity with Shakespeare has never depended on a

manner of the present revival of interest in
But I think it true to say that the deeper insights into
Shakespeare's art as a verse-dramatist, which we owe to the
successful verse-dramatists of our own time, are quite new.
revival in the
Purcell.

am suggesting

profit

by

these

that the English

composer might be able to

new insights to procure for himself one of the

elements necessary to a sense of continuity of English opera,

but generally missing from Purcell, the element of the

double pattern of drama and music. But because

this

element

in Shakespeare
only exemplified in verse-drama and not
in opera proper, a composer has always to translate these
is

into other terms, and, obviously enough, the

Shakespearian drama does not provide that compendium of
dramatic music for the English theatre which PurcelTs
works alone provide.

insights

It is a strange sense of continuity that has its elements so

divided in time and manner. Yet if it is really possible that

the English composer can see how to use Shakespeare as the

master for certain things that are usually only sought for in
great operatic composers as such, then our sense of musical
continuity with Purcell may be further developed and
fructified.

6
Purcell and the Chapel

Royal

JEREMY NOBLE
More

than a hundred years ago PurcelTs church music was

if not very accurate,

published in a practically complete,

edition

by Vincent Novello, yet

it

remains

less

well

known

whole than any other branch of his output. Even in our

more enterprising cathedral and collegiate churches the
as a

number of PurcelTs anthems

small.

in regular use

There are various reasons for

this,

is

deplorably

both of taste and of

technical difficulty. The frank directness with which Purcell

translates the joy or the grief of the Psalmist into the current

musical terms of his

own

too secular, too theatrical,

by some people to be
but although no one in his senses

day

is felt

would claim that PurcelTs church music expressed a spiritual

experience as profound or intense as that of Byrd or Bach,
it is

certainly less superficial

than that of

many composers

who

figure prominently in cathedral music-lists, and as

music infinitely more rewarding. As for the charge that it

too difficult for the average choir, this sounds more like an
excuse than a reason, when 'average choirs' can hardly be

is

restrained from tackling the much more difficult music of

Bach and Handel. In the near future the Purcell Society will

complete

its

authoritative edition of the church music; the

is intended as a brief footnote to it

and an
encouragement not to allow the forthcoming volumes to

present article

gather dust

on their purchasers'

shelves.

Purcell

As

and the Chapel Royal

53

was one of the twelve choristers of the

Chapel Royal, and at the age of twenty-three he followed his
father and his uncle in being appointed a Gentleman. With
a child Purcell

twelve boys and thirty-two men (even though some of the

latter can have attended only
rarely) the Chapel Royal was
the most sumptuous ecclesiastical establishment in the
country, and there is no reason to doubt that all of PurcelTs
at some time performed by it, even
of
some
the
though
simpler pieces may have been written

church music was

with the

capabilities

of smaller

choirs, such as that

of "West-

minster Abbey, in mind. Quite apart from the interest that

naturally attaches to an institution with which Purcell was
so closely connected there is, therefore, the possibility that
the following brief account of the Chapel Royal in his day

may clarify some problems of performance.

The list on page

55 of the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal

a Gentle-

who were in office during PurcelTs own period as

man (i.e. from July 1682 to November 1695)

has been

compiled mainly from information in the Old ChequeBook, a comprehensive register kept by one of the Gentlemen known as the Clerk of the Cheque, to record such
matters as appointments, admonitions, and petitions. The
Old Cheque-Book was published by E. F. Rimbault in
1872 for the

Camden

Society

(New

Series, III);

by kind

permission of the Sub-Dean of the Chapel Royal, Rimbault's

edition has been compared with the original manuscript,
still
kept at St. James's Palace, and it has also been supplemented from other sources. The list is arranged in chronological order
(a)

those

of appointment and divided into four groups:

careers we know to have begun

whose musical

Commonwealth, even though they may not have

been appointed to the Chapel until the Restoration; (6) the
remainder of the Gentlemen who were appointed to the
before the

Purcell

54

and

the

Chapel Royal

the beginning of 1661;

Chapel in 1660 and
and PurcelTs
the
Restoration
between
those appointed

reconstituted
(c)

own

appointment;

a
years as

(d)

Gentleman

those appointed during his thirteen

to

fill

vacant places. Groups

(a), (&),

taken together thus show the constitution of the

(cj
entered it; Edward Lowe, to
Chapel just before Purcell
has been included. Dates in
he
succeeded,
whose

and

place
brackets indicate 'extraordinary',

as recorded in

made

-unpaid,

appointments

the Cheque-Book; these were sometimes

for a particular occasion,

an 'ordinary'

i.e.

place,

sometimes

as

first

step to

and where a bracketed date

is

not

followed by an unbracketed one it is to be assumed that full

membership of the Chapel was not granted. In these cases
the second column of dates departure from the Chapel
of Gentleman of the
obviously does not apply. The office
for life, and unless otherChapel Royal was normally held
wise stated the date of 'departure' is the date of death. The
or bass
type of voice counter-tenor, tenor,
of
and
the
organist by O.
post
by C, T, or B,

One

thing that emerges clearly

cursory examination of this

list

from

is

indicated

even, the

most

of Gentlemen of the Chapel

very high standard of professional comRoyal

must
have
been maintained. For a brief period after
petence
the Restoration it seemed an almost impossible task to repair
is

that a

the loss of traditional

caused by sixteen years' interruption of the musical services, and the preface to Edward

Lowe's

skill

Short Direction for the Performance of Cathedrall

Service (1661;

2nd

ed., 1664) reflects

the anxiety of the older

generation of church musicians. But by 1682 the position

had improved immeasurably. For one thing, there were still

number of musicians to provide continuity with

Commonwealth period. It was the death of Lowe,

the pro-

organist
of Christ Church, Oxford, since the 1630$, that provided a

Purcell

and

the

55

Chapel Royal

GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAPEL ROYAL,

1682-95

Died

Admitted
(a)

John Harding

Thomas Blagrave

(b)

7 Nov. 1684

Edward Lowe

1660/1

ii July 1682

George Bettenham

Edward Braddock

1660/1
1660/1

James Cobb

1660 /i

19 Sept. 1694
12 June 1708
20 July 1697

Frost

1660/1

after 1 1 April

Rev. John Sayer

Nathaniel Watkins

C
T
T
C

1660/1
1660/1
1660/1
1660/1

1689
27 June 1704
31 July 1682
Jan. 1694
8 May 1702

Rev. George Yardley

7 June 1662

after 23 April

Rev. Blase White

Thomas Richardson
Rev. William Hopwood
Rev. Henry Smith

B
C
B
T
C
B
B
B

14

John Goodgroome

Thomas

Puree!!

William Turner
Rev. James Hart
Richard Hart
Rev. Andrew Trebeck
Rev. Stephen Crespion
Dr. John Blow
Rev. William Powell

Michael Wise
Alphonso Marsh, jun.

23 (24?) Mar.

1697*

March 1664

Aug. 1664
25 Oct. 1664
4 Oct. 1666
ii Oct. 1669

7 Nov. 1670
26 April 1671
5 Oct. 1671
-3 13 May 1673
1 6 March 1674
T 21 July 1674

Thomas Heywood

T
B
T

6 Jan. 1676
25 April 1676
26 Oct. 1676
29 March 1679

Rev. John Gostling

(25 Feb. 1678) Feb.-

John Abell

C
T
B

Rev.

J.

C. Sharole

March 1678

Morgan

Harris

(i

May

1679) Jan. 1680

1685
25 Feb. 1700
23 July 1712
13 July 1683
23 May 1688
13
8

June 1740

May

1718

8 Feb. 1690

19 Nov. 1715
25 Nov. 1711
1 Oct. 1708
after 23 April
1685
24 Aug. 1687
5 April 1692
5 Aug. 1687
resigned Michaelmas, 1688
17 July 1733
dismissed i688 4

20 Feb. 1680

2 Nov. 1697

15

HENRY PURCELL

Aug. 1681
14 July 1682*

14 March 1717
21 Nov. 1695

Boucher

B
B

(28

Aug. 1682
June 1683) 23 July
(24 July 1683) 10 Nov.

6 Dec. I695 6
23 Aug. 1702
March 1730

Rev. Leonard

(d)

Nov. 1688

1660/1
1
I66O/I

21

Dr. William Child

Henry

(c)

1638

Josias

Woodson

Nathaniel Vestment
Rev. Samuel Bentham

1684

NOTES
1

Child was appointed one of the organists of St. George's Chapel, Windsor,
and is stated in Grove and elsewhere to have served concurrently as an
organist of the Chapel Royal; there is no record in the Cheque-Book, however,
of his having any official appointment in the Chapel before the Restoration.

in 1632,

2 The date of Child's death is

given as 24 March in the Cheque-Book, but in
Grove as the 23rd, possibly following the inscription on his tombstone.
3
Crespion was Confessor to the Royal Household and Precentor of Westminster Abbey, but there is nothing to show whether he sang tenor or bass in

the ChapeL
4 Abell became a member of
James ITs Catholic Chapel (the only Gentleman
of the Chapel Royal to do so), and at the accession of William and Mary appears
to have been dismissed. He certainly left the country, and did not return until
1700. He died at Cambridge in 1724.
5

The date of the warrant for Purcell's appointment. His swearing-in did not
pkce until 16 September.
6 The
Cheque-Book appears to give 16 December, and Rimbault reads it so;
but Boucher's successor, John Howell, was sworn in on the loth and the *i* in
take

the manuscript could be a blot.

7 Lenton
probably died soon after 1718,

when

his

name

disappears

from

the

Royal Band.
8 The Clerk of the
Cheque originally wrote 'extraordinary*; the 'extra* was
kter crossed out, but as no further reference to Caches occurs in the ChequeBook it seems unlikely that he was ever appointed to full membership.

Purcell

and the Chapel Royal

place for Purcell.

who

57

survived for another

John Harding,
had been one of the choristers at James I's funeral
in 1625 and still took an active part in the work of the
Chapel, regularly attending the Court at Windsor. Blagrave,
a friend of Pepys and since 1662 the Clerk of the
Cheque,
had entered royal service in 1638 as a member of Charles
I's band of 'sackbuts and
hoboys' a group in which his
father also played. He later took up the violin, and was in
fact one of the founder-members of the select .band of
twenty-four that Charles II formed in emulation of Louis
XIV. It comes as something of a shock, too, to realize that
the venerable Dr. Child, who had been born in 1606,
outlived Purcell by sixteen months.
Nor was Purcell alone in belonging to a family of
musicians. We have akeady mentioned that Blagrave's
father, Richard, was a member of the royal wind-music,
and it seems likely that Harding was related to the James
Harding who served Elizabeth and James I as a flautist.
Goodgroome was probably a brother of the Theodore
Goodgroome who taught Pepys and his wife singing; and
the John Goodgroome who was organist of St. Peter's,
Cornhill, was the son of one or the other. Alphonso Marsh's
father, also Alphonso, had been one of the royal musicians
since the reign of Charles I, and a Gentleman of the Chapel
Royal since 1660; he had died only a year before Purcell
was appointed. Thomas Heywood was almost certainly, a
member of the famous family of actors and musicians
who had been connected with the Court for 150 years,
and the Woodsons were another family who had produced
at least three generations of musicians.
To a contemporary it might have seemed a lean period for
composers in the Chapel, with Matthew Locke and the

two

years,

young Pelham Humfrey both

EHP

recently dead, but a quick

Purcell and the Chapel

5S

Royal

of church
look reveals a number of prominent composers
himself: Child, William Turner,
music, apart from Purcell
who rushed
Blow, and the unfortunate Michael Wise,
was killed
and
wife
his
with
his house after a

from

quarrel

from a night-watchman whom he

by blow on the head
are only to be
encountered. Composers of church music
a

of the
in the Chapel, but a -surprising number
of the
in
the
song-collections
Gentlemen are also

expected

represented

time.

Blow and James Hart were

prolific song-writers,

and

so too were several of the younger post-Purcellian generawas one of the royal violins and
Lenton
tion:

(who
John
wrote a considerable quantity of theatre music), Moses
Snow (also a violinist and a member of the Westminster
and the famous French counter-tenor

Abbey

choir),

Damascene.
the Chapel contained a number of the
Naturally enough,
interest in
best singers of the time, and these are of particular
of many
first
the
for
that they were responsible
performances
also the
but
the
anthems,
of PurcelTs works not only
occasional cantatas.

Most of the

soloists

whose names have

been preserved on manuscript scores of Welcome Songs

and Birthday and Cecilian Odes are drawn from among the
members of the Chapel. It has been conjectured that
Turner's St. Cecilia Ode for 1685, 'Tune the viol', was an
amateurish composition since

it

was never printed, but

its

as an indispensable counter-tenor
composer was regarded
soloist on these occasions. Boucher, PurcelTs almost exact
and John
contemporary in the Chapel Royal, Damascene,

Abell are also frequently specified as counter-tenor soloists,

Continent from about 1688 to
although Abell was on the

had studied in Italy, and Evelyn describes him as

'that famous treble' and says of his voice that 'one would have
sworn it was a woman's, it was so high and excellently
1700. (He

Purcell

and

the

59

Chapel Royal

Ho well was also a high counter-tenor,

and his appointment to the Chapel was probably an attempt
to fill the gap in its ranks left by Abell.
managed'.) John

Among the basses Gostling traditionally stands supreme,

we should not let his great reputation blind us to the

but

he had

fact that

bass parts

(which

rivals.
is

The extended range of PurcelTs

on page 63 in another

considered

context) can hardly have been due to one man's phenomenal powers. Of the Gentlemen of the Chapel who are

Odes, Leonard Woodson

and Daniel Williams appear most frequently; but the most
important of Gostling's rivals was not a member of the

named

as bass soloists in Purcell's

Chapel, although he was in royal service. John

and member of the Private Music

theatre singer

was

Bowman,
(as

Gostling

must have been at the height of his powers during

lifetime, for he died in 1739 at the advanced age of

too),

Purcell's

eighty-eight. He was the original interpreter of the parts of

Grimbald in King Arthur and Cardenio in Don Quixote, and

him leaves no doubt that he was

of the age. Bowman and the
counter-tenor Anthony Robert (perhaps the son of the
musician of the same name who had been in charge of

the music Purcell wrote for

one of the

finest singers

Henrietta Maria's music at Somerset House) are practically

the only singers taking solo parts in the Odes who were not,
either at the time or soon after, Gentlemen of the Chapel;

both were in the Private Music, and

religious reasons that prevented
to the Chapel.

it

may have been

them from being appointed

Tenor soloists play aless important partinPurcelTsscheme

of things than counter-tenors and basses; usually only two
are named in the scores of the Odes, as against three or four
of the other voices. However, among those named Alphonso
and Church,
frequently, and so do Freeman

Marsh appears

Purcell

both of

and

the

Chapel Royal

were to be appointed Gentlemen of the

whom

soon
Chapel Royal

after PurceU's death.

there had been no specific post of organist in

Originally
from among
the Chapel Royal; organists had been drawn
for
keyboardthose Gentlemen with a particular aptitude

But during the seventeenth century the organists'

came to be acknowledged officially, and
special
from the Restoration onwards it was normal for three to

playing;

function

hold

any one time.

office at

Of the

three organists in the

two were
them with commitments away from
Windsor and at Oxford. The main
at
London namely
must have fallen on Blow, and the
duties
their
burden of
to the place made vacant by Edward
appointment of Purcell
Lowe's death would bring the two men into close coon the
Probably Purcell was appointed more
period immediately
old men, each of

before PurcelTs appointment

operation.

as a keyboard-player than for his

strength of his prowess
their turn in the
the
for
voice,
organists had to take
although

choir there

is

that any
in the
not
certainly

no independent evidence to suggest

known as a singer
those mentioned above as soloists.

of them was well

same

class as

T?urcelTs
tion.

equivocal in
(PurcelTs

been the subject of some speculais unJournal for November 1692

own voice has

The Gentleman
its

own

report

of the

St. Cecilia

'Hail, bright Cecilia

The following Ode was admirably

!')

Ode

for that year

set to

Music by Mr. Henry

Purcell, and performed twice with universal applause, particuwhich was sung
larly the second Stanza [*Tis Nature's voice],

with incredible Graces by Mr.

Now

Purcell himself.

presumably Motteux, or his correspondent, cannot

have slipped up on so straightforward a matter of fact, yet it
seems amazing that if Purcell were capable of giving a really

Purcell and the

satisfactory

61

Chapel Royal

performance of such florid music we should hear

no more of him

as a

copied out for a

later

singer.

And

it was
probably
worth noting that

although

performance

it is

PurcelTs autograph score bears the

against this particular verse. (Pate,

name of

who was

'Mr. Pate*

well-known

theatre singer, was dismissed from the Playhouse company

in June 1695 for his part in a Jacobite riot, and appears to

have travelled abroad: Evelyn heard him on 30 May 1698,

when he was lately come from Italy' on this occasion he
;

sang 'many rare Italian recitatives, &c., and several compositions of the late Mr. Purcell'.) Thus in spite of the
evidence of the Gentleman s Journal it seems just possible
'Tis Nature's voice' at its first performance
'

that the singer of

was Pate and not

Could someone have scribbled

down 'Mr. P/ in his notes and misinterpreted them when he
came to write the occasion up? Any music critic could
Purcell.

confirm that stranger things have happened.

In his admirable book on Purcell, Professor "Westrup
made an attempt to reconcile the presumption that he sang
counter-tenor with the fact that Sandford lists him among the
basses in his account

Sandford's
tell

us in

ofJames

II's

coronation.

But although

a useful guide, its purpose is primarily to

order the Gentlemen processed, rather than

list is

what

to give us information about their voices. For the sake of

easy reference it is given here, with the spelling of the
names brought into conformity with the previous list:

COUNTER-TENORS
I.

(Wise)

2.

3. (Abell)

Richardson

7.

Morton

(Heywood)
Dr. Uvedal

5.

Turner

9. Harris

13.

Cohb

6.

10.
14.

Goodgroome

TENORS
n.

Marsh
Braddock

4.

Boucher

8.

Watkins

Bedford

Frost

15. (Smith)

Geo. Hart

12.

Powell

16.

Sayer

Purcell and the Chapel

I.

2.

Crespion

Royal

Holder

Sandford's; Crespion and Holder, as

Confessor and Sub-Dean, are numbered separately from the
the former held a
even
of the

The numbering

is

Gentlemen

though
Chapel,
Gentleman's place. The names given in brackets are those of
Gentlemen unable to attend the ceremony; Sandford, it will
it is
even tells us who their deputies were.
be

Now

seen,

clear that the last file,

immediately in front of Crespion and

not of basses, but of the Chapel's most

made up
conferred upon Child and
members
seniority was
important
Blow by their doctorates, quite apart from the former's great
Clerk of the Cheque and Child's closest
age; Blagrave was
not
of
rival in length
service; and Nicholas Staggins, though
the
of
Master
was
of the Chapel,
actually a Gentleman
would
the twenty-four violins, who
Music
Holder, was

(namely,

King's

be taking part in the ceremony), and had received a

doctorate only three years earlier. Purcell was not senior
to walk in this august group, and so he may well

also

enough
have been included

the basses simply to make up a

list is insufficient
complete file. At any rate, Sandford's
that he was a capable singer in
evidence on which to

among

argue
both bass and counter-tenor

registers

like

Mr. Pordage of
had

the King's Catholic Chapel, who, according to Evelyn,

*an excellent voice both treble and bass'.

In fact
to

it

seems to have been

combine

much more

usual for singers

with the role of counter-tenor that of tenor.

perusal of the

Cheque-Book shows that Thomas Richardson

Purcell and the

63

Chapel Royal

affidavit in March 1664 in which he refers to

himself as 'being to be sworn into the next place of a lay
tenor or counter-tenor'; Andrew Carter in January of the

signed an

same year was

'to

come

into

pay when the next tenor or

counter-tenor's place shall be void'; and Thomas Heywood,

who succeeded to a counter-tenor's place and
we see
in the first file of counter-tenors in Sandford's list, was in

whom

1685

confirmed in the Private Music

as a tenor.

This

interchangeability of tenor and counter-tenor voices, even

though it may not have been very frequently practised,
does give us a clearer idea of the type of voice Purcell had in

mind

for his counter-tenor parts.

A cursory examination of

anthems reveals that the sixteenth-century ideal of

voices of equal compass equally spaced at intervals of a

his

fourth or fifth from one another had been

much

modified.

and tenor parts have, as a rule, a

a
ninth
or
a
in the verse sections, an octave
of
tenth
compass
or less in the choruses. Bass parts, on the other hand, often
approach a two-octave compass, and sometimes even exceed
it; this occurs too often to be attributed solely to the
phenomenal range of the Rev. Mr. Gostling. Purcell's
basses were evidently real basses, from whom low E's
and D's could be demanded, but they must have been
Purcell's counter-tenor

expected to extend their compass upwards

use of head-voice.

As

by a

for the counter-tenors,

it

discreet

looks as

though they or at any rate the majority of those in the

Chapel Royal were more like high light tenors than purely
falsetto voices, for Purcell rarely makes them go higher than
B flat or B, while his tenors have an equal range about a
major third lower. This would tally with his usual manner of
writing for the conventional A T B trio, in which A and T
in stepwise chains of parallel thirds, while B is
considerably more far-ranging and independent; the proper

move

Purcell

64

and

the

Chapel Royal

blend could only have been achieved if counter-tenor and

tenor were similar in timbre.
An examination of the available records of the Chapel
also

Royal

gives

us

some

idea of the balance

of forces

would have regarded as normal. Although in the

muster of the Chapel basses outnumbered both tenors
and counter-tenors it should be noted that they contain far
more than their fair share of clergymen, not all of whom

Purcell
total

were

as

purposes

as Gostling. For practical

distinguished singers
the three kinds of male voice were regarded as

in weight, voice for voice; for when the Court

to Windsor, and the Chapel with it, it was cus-

equivalent
repaired

tomary for between four and six of each voice

to be deputed,

This gives a much higher proportogether with eight boys.

tion of men to boys than we are accustomed to hearing

the over-weightnowadays, but there can be little doubt that

of
modern
church choirs
so
characteristic
the
top part
ing of
due
is a comparatively recent innovation
partly to a

change in musical

of maintaining a

taste

and partly to the increasing

body of lay-clerks.

difficulty

sufficient

difficulties facing anyone who wishes

anthems in the course of a normal
PurcelTs
today to perform
service is the fact that some of the best of them make use of

One of the main

and PurcelTs string-writing, as one might expect,

too idiomatic to be happily transferred to the organ.
The story of Charles Ts introduction of the band of violins
strings

is

into the Chapel services in 1662 and the scandal it caused to

the more conservative musicians and, doubtless, divines

has often been narrated, but

it is sometimes
forgotten that
the period during which they were in regular use was a
comparatively brief one of about fifteen years at most.

However, the latter part of that period coincides exactly

with the time when most of PurcelTs anthems were written.

Purcell and the

Chapel Royal

should not be interpreted too literally when he

writes that 'after the death of King Charles symphonies

Tudway

indeed with instruments were laid

aside', for

about half of

the Purcell anthems that can with reasonable certainty be

ascribed to 1687 an-d 1688 still require strings, but it seems
likely that after the accession

was discontinued.

of William and Mary their use

strings took part in these

How many

performances? On great occasions it is clear that all twentyfour 'violins' were present, but it would be interesting to

know how many were

considered necessary to balance the

reduced strength of the Chapel as it performed at other
times. Unfortunately, the published documents refer mainly
to the period before Purcell became a Gentleman of the
Chapel. In 1671 the usual number was only five, in 1672
six, but this was very likely the number considered suffi-

performance of symphonies written in only

violins and bass. In 1678, when eight boys
men attended at Windsor, the number of
strings was twelve, and this seems a more reasonable body
cient for the

three parts
and sixteen

two

four-part writing. What its internal disit is

impossible to say with certainty, but on the

for PurcelTs

was
analogy of some slightly later bands detailed in Carse's
The Orchestra in the XVIIIth Century we might hazard a

position

guess of 4:4:1:2:1. Perhaps, when a full-scale church organ

with sixteen-foot pipes was available, it is possible that the
violone or double-bass was dispensed with, and in such
cases

an extra viola

may have been

added.

goes without saying that a modern performance of

PurcelTs anthems should attempt to reproduce the proportions of the forces to which he himself was accustomed
It

and for which he wrote. For easy reference it may be useful

to set these out in tabular form. The total number of
Gentlemen can only have been present on such occasions

as

Purcell and the Chapel

66
coronations,

so

that a

Royal

minimal figure

given in the

is

suggested break-down into counter-tenors,

tenors,

and

basses:

Boys
Full muster:

Reduced

12

forces

(Windsor,

etc.,)

8
:

Men
32
18

(at least 8:8:8)

least 4:4:4)
(at

Strings

24 (8:8:3

:4:i)

12 (4:4:1 :2:i or

4 :4 :2 12)

An

View of

Organist's

the

Organ Works

RALPH DOWNES
The name of Henry

Purcell has only to be mentioned in

connexion with the organ, and the air is immediately ablaze

with echoes of Trumpet Tunes and Voluntaries played on

Tuba

the incomparable

stops for

which modern English

organ-builders have long been justly renowned, by wellknown English organists of our day, using the modern
'arrangements' produced by enterprising publishers in recent
years or alternatively, played with harsher effect possibly, by

even better-known French organists,

on

us

more or less

who

visit these

things

perennially.

That these compositions exist authentically only in the

form of minute trifles for harpsichord or spinet, though a
fact

well-known

to 'specialists'

who

have taken the trouble

Volume VI of the

Purcell Society Edition or the

has
been
overlooked to a remarkable
originals themselves,
degree by practising musicians both British and foreign,
to peruse

whom

some of
have so effectively publicized this pseudoPurcell as to put under total eclipse the true character of the
composer's work for the organ and of the instrument for
which he composed.

The
by
aU

publication in 1957 of PurcelTs organ works, edited

Hugh McLean (Novello), has placed within the reach of
it

would seem

the true picture: and a very excellent

An

68

Organist's

View of the Organ Works

piece of practical scholarship

it is.

down

But it is when the practisof these pieces

to the study

ing organist really gets

that he realizes that the creation of a pseudo-Purcell for his

instrument was perhaps justified by a kind of psychological

for the pieces are disappointing for the most part,
necessity:

and exhibit few

traces

of the mature Purcell

Westrup

of the true and acknowledged genius

('if

drily observes).

lished only at second

indeed they are

Even

Professor

no autograph, and some

which they occur contain

hand: there

of the manuscript copies in

his', as

their authenticity is estabis

certain other suspect attributions.

and busy life as court

as well as custodian,
and
performer,
composer, singer,
tuner, and repairer of all the King's instruments (including
the organs in Westminster Abbey and the Chapels Royal)
left him little time for committing to paper solo organ
compositions which he may largely have improvised as
It

may well be

that PurcelTs short

demanded there being no other performers to be

with
copies in such a case. Such a view is perhaps
supplied
supported by the meagre quantity of other keyboard music
occasion

which has survived, apart from the small volume of Lessons

for Harpsichord, published by his widow.
We can only guess what a wealth of musical enjoyment
was showered on the audience at the famous organ demonstrations ('The Battle of the Organs') in which he took part
with John Blow, playing on and championing 'Father'

new instrument

at the Temple Church, during his

The
twenty-sixth year.
organ was a small one by modern
and
had
no
standards,
pedals and no id-foot pitch, but

Smith's

was remarkably rich for

its time,
containing the newlyContinental
the
imported
stops of
Baroque style mixtures,
reeds such as the Trumpet and Vox Humana, and the
it

Cornet stop which enjoyed popular favour throughout the

An

Organist's

View of the Organ Works

6)

whole of the eighteenth century. Not a trace of this

organ
remains, and it was heard in original form by no one within
living

memory. The same melancholy

fate has overtaken

every one of Smith's instruments, and

reconstruct their
realized

by

if

one wishes to

approximate tonal effect, that can only be

one of the few unspoiled organs of the

visiting

same period in France, Germany, or Holland.

"Whatever the explanation of the paucity of surviving
compositions, let us now consider what remains: two short
Verses and a short piece in C, all stylistically indistinguishable from the work of his contemporaries; a kind of Choral

Prelude on the 'Old Hundredth' (attributed equally to

Blow), not very original, and interesting mainly as a very

example of

early

registration for the

Cornet stop; two

D minor, one for Single and one for Double

a
and
Organ;
piece in G major.
The works in D minor begin almost alike it impossible

longer pieces in

to establish
is

is

any chronology, but the piece for Single Organ

stylistically

The opening

the superior, and is simpler and more direct

of a terse fugal exposition, actually in

consists

the traditional manner of voluntaries, though charge4

with the Baroque emotional content found in Christopher
Gibbons, Blow, and Matthew Locke. It goes further, however, than any of them: and an added intensity is produced
by the dramatic repeated notes, the forceful use of ornamentation,

and the

effect ofstretto

Ex.3
[Full organ]

culminating in a great roulade.

An

jo

Organist's

View of the Organ Works

m
r r

i'-

rr

(Note: As
mentation

is
is

frequent at this period, some additional ornaimplicit in the text, and must be supplied in

An

Organist's

View of the Organ Works

ji

my suggestions for this are shown in brackets.)

Unfortunately, some of the ground thus early and easily
won is as quickly lost until the emergence of a new motive:
performance

which dominates the second half of the piece both rhythmically and melodically leading to a vigorous tonic pedal
cadence, the jagged outlines and satisfying harmony of
PurcelTs. But some crudity and ungain-

which again seem

in the intervening harmonic structure suggest an

incomplete mastery of the material: some of this has been

liness

refined

away by Mr. McLean,

a doubtful improvement.

However, the total impression

dramatic grandeur.

The remaining piece in

it is

G major

is

is

undoubtedly one of
in a different category.

descended from the Italian expressive Toccata

Clearly
those of Frescobaldi were evidently known in England,
for two voluntaries attributed to Blow (one of them a

'Double Verse' occurring in the same manuscript collection

make fairly extensive unacknowledged quotafrom two out of his First Book (1614). It is also probable that the Toccatas of Michael Angelo Rossi had already
as this piece)

tions

found their way here. The piece under consideration exhibits

none of the melodic extravagance or harmonic eccentricity
of the Italians' work: and though chromaticism, false
relation

and the well-worn dissonances of the diminished

and augmented triads occur and are even dwelt on, the
whole remains tranquil and contemplative, with an air of
sweetness and refined comprehensiveness, typically English:
impression is in no-wise contradicted in the neat round-

this

ing off of the

movement with

a sprightly canzona section.

An

72
It is

little

limitation

Organist's

View of the Organ Works

gem of its kind,

is

within a limited sphere, and that

largely instrumental.

Ex.5
[Soft]

Conclusion begins:-

etc.

An

View of the Organ Works

73
as
these
works
stand
out
in
Trifling
may appear, they
relief
the
formalized
and
sometimes
against
sharp
vapid
organ music of the succeeding generation. But their fragility
is

such that

Organist's

literal

be

transposition

on

to the

modern English

damaging: these instruments, for all

their useful qualities, are not designed for contrapuntal
music, and therefore in performance, subterfuges have to be
employed, the success of which will vary enormously
organ

may

fatally

according to the circumstances encountered.

Nevertheless, these pieces are all we possess: therefore, at
least, they must be treasured with gratitude if regretfully:

and the pseudo-Purcell must

FHP

die.

8
Music Today
ROBERT DONINGTON

Performing

Purcell's

There could hardly be a composer more sympathetic to the

three centuries is a long
present generation than Purcell. Yet
time to bridge.

And Purcell's music was left unused for many

in which
generations, so that the traditions
since
been
have
forgotten.
long
performed

was originally
"We have there-

it

fore certain difficulties in giving Purcell a completely understanding performance: difficulties

his traditions

which would not

arise if

had never been

interrupted.
difficulties can best be met by a
these
experience,
double approach. In the first place, we can find out as much

In

my

as possible
his music;

which
can
t

about

we

survives

make

how

his

can do

own

contemporaries performed

by examining any evidence

in written form. That is where scholarship
this

a useful contribution.

ln the second place,

we must trust our own

musicianship

to respond, not only to this evidence, but above all to the

music itself. Unless we are capable of this response, scholar-

There is, indeed, much to be found out

which musicianship by itself cannot be expected to recover.
But still less can we expect to recover it if we allow our
ship cannot help us.

We

scholarship to override our musicianship.

position of explorers who will not neglect any
ever inadequate, left by their predecessors, but

that

when the

real difficulties begin, it

judgement that they must

trust.

is

are in the

map, how-

who know
own good

to their

Performing Purcell's Music Today

The most fundamental

difficulty, I believe,

75

is

how to give

practical expression to what I should describe as the romantic

character of Purcell's music. This romantic character shows

most obviously in his harmony. The heartrending suspensions, which are really written-out long appoggiaturas, in
Dido's famous Lament are romantic harmony in the same
sense in which the appoggiatura-based progressions in
Wagner's Tristan are romantic harmony. But we know now
as

the previous generation did not

which

is

forming style
not right for Purcell's.
In

some

told that

and that

term

that the per-

quarters, the reaction has

gone too

far.

is

We are

out of style to romanticize early music at all,

need an unimpassioned rendering to which the

it is

we

'objective' (first introduced

ion with J.

own

know

right for "Wagner's romanticism

by Schweitzer in connexBut what do Purcell's

Bach) has been applied.

contemporaries tell us?
S.

They tell

us that the serenity they undoubtedly achieved,

enough to be worth having, was

like all serenity real

achieved not by any illusory exclusion of passion but by a

genuine richness of experience. The passion as well as the
serenity can

be recognized in

their music,

and

it

could be

1
recognized in their performances. Here is what the English
translator wrote (1709) in a footnote to a passage in Rague-

net's Comparison Between the French

and

Italian

Music (1702)

where the turbulence of Italian violin-playing in agitated

movements is being contrasted with its lingering sweetness
in tender movements: 2
I

never met with any

1

man that suffered his passions to hurry him

For a sample of the evidence the reader is referred to Appendix B.

translator was probably J. E. GalliarcL The entire pamphlet is
Musical Quarterly, XXXII, 3 July 1946,
reprinted, ed, O. Strunk, in
2

The

pp. 4iiff.

7#

Performing

away

so

PurceU's Music Today

much whilst he was pkying on

the violin as the

famous

turn red as fire;

eyes will sometimes

Arcangelo Corelli, whose

countenance will be extorted, his eyeballs roll as in an agony,
in so much to what he is doing that he doth not
and he

his

gives

look

like the

same man.

the impression (not exactly an objective one)

made on his hearers by the classical Corelli himself, it is
that we have to be
obviously not impassioned emotion
like Purcell.
romantic
afraid of when interpreting a born
If that

is

have to be afraid of is reading something into his

is not there; and this will only happen if we
of what is there. False
an
have
insufficiently clear idea
false
romanticism is only
because, instead of growing out
of the music, it is grafted on to it without due regard for
what goes with what: in a word, for style.
All

we

music which

But

style

is

not some vague aesthetic mystery. Style

mostly a matter

of getting the

details

is

reasonably authentic.

can do that, the genuine romantic feeling which is

music will emerge almost of its own
implicit in PurcelTs
If

we

accord.

THE PERFORMER'S SHARE IN PROVIDING THE

NOTES

We

accustomed nowadays (with important exto having the notes all settled for
ceptions in dance music)
us by the composer that we find it hard to realize the extent
are so

were expected to add to them

went
along. There is an element of sheer
impromptu they
most
about
early music which any good interspontaneity
of
it needs to
convey, even if there is no actual
pretation
improvisation going on. Hardly any modern musicians
to which the early performers
as

are trained to

improve and, indeed, to complete the comimpromptu fashion as they go along. The

position in this

Performing Purcett's Music Today

editor has to

work

do

it

for

them

in writing.

But

77

if the editorial

well done, and if the performer can keep the

necessary freshness of feeling, the result can sound sponis

taneous without actually being improvised. It is the spirit

rather than the fact of improvisation which is important.

When

supplying, in writing, many notes which the

left to be more or less
improvised, an editor is
a
his
with
performers
providing
working version which

composer

they can use if they have not the skill to provide their own,
but can adapt or ignore if they have the necessary skill.
There is no final solution; there was never meant to be;
there can only be a good solution, by which
example of the many which are possible.

mean

good

ACCIDENTALS
was writing at a time that was only just out of the
period in which the performer was expected to regulate his
own accidentals, where necessary or desirable, under the
loose guidance of the conventions ofmusicajicta.
In this respect, PurcelTs written parts should normally be
performed as they stand, except where there are obvious
mistakes or where common sense suggests something not
actually written. For example, it was still by no means unusual
in PurcelTs day to sharpen the seventh degree of the minor
Purcell

by writing in the necessary #, but

to the performer to sharpen the sixth degree without written indicascale

tion. In such cases,

G#,

F,

to leave

it

G# is not meant as an augmented

second; the F was regarded as so obviously in need of a # that

none was

written.

The modern rule that the force of an accidental

continues

until but not beyond the next bar-line was not yet established
in PurcelTs day. Thus, a passage written as at Ex. 6 is almost
a
certainly intended as at Ex. 7; whereas, on the contrary,

Music Today
Performing Purcell's

7#

as at Ex. 8
passage written

Ex.

is

intended as at
quite certainly

9.

Ex.7

Ex.6

As perhaps

written then

As perhaps

written then

As

written

now

^
Ex.9
As written now

Ex.8

In Ex. 6 the

composer would further have

relied

on an

in the minor
accepted disposition for stepwise passages
mode to go up sharp but come down flat. If, however, he

wanted

to

have been

make doubly
as at

sure, his notation

would probably

Ex. 10.

Ex.10

Observe that our

c.rr

t|

if

had no place in the standard notation

b was used to cancel

of seventeenth-century England. Thus

#, and f was used to cancel |?.
So

much

for the written

parts; but there

is also

the ac-

companiment and the ornamentation, neither of which

was usually written out. The accidentals which need to be
supplied for an ornamental embellishment are mostly clear
from the prevailing tonality; but those required for the
accompaniment are not always obvious, nor ire they Always

shown by

the figuring. There are

still

few remnants of

Performing Purcell's Music Today

musica ficta

which a

79

figured-bass accompanist in Purcell's

music should know.

There

is first

of

all

the rule concerning the sharpened

leading note. In the case of music as relatively recent as

1
Purcell's, this rule can be put quite simply in Agazzari's
brief statement: 'All cadences, whether intermediate or

need the major third' whether indicated or not. This,

however, applies only to important cadences, not to passing
final,

cadences. The major third in question is the sharp leading

note on the penultimate dominant.
There is next the Picardy third, another old convention.

note must always be taken with a

2
major, whether so indicated or not.
sharp sign',
Niedt 3 adds the reservation: 'French composers do the
'In a final

cadence the

last

i.e.,

opposite, but not everything is

from France/ This reservation

good just because

is

interesting,

it

comes

but possibly

too sweeping; moreover, though French influence was

strong in Purcell's music, Italian influence was stronger. I
feel sure, from practical experience, that the convention of

making major the

final tonic

chord of a minor movement

can be applied to Purcell where the result sounds convincing.

ORNAMENTAL EMBELLISHMENT
The embellishment

left

to the performer

by seventeenth

and eighteenth-century composers is 'ornamental* only in

the sense that it can take any appropriate form without
changing the substance of the music; not in the sense that it
can be left out entirely. At the astonishingly late date of
1
2

Agostino Agazzari, Del suonare sopra

Wolfgang

Ebner,

German

il

basso

transl. in J.

. .

(Sienna, 1607).

A. Herbst, Arte

prattica

poetica (Frankfurt, 1653).

3

Friedrich Erhardt Niedt, Musicalische Handleitung

VII, 6.

(Hamburg, 1700),

Music Today
Performing Pumll's

So
c.

1805, Dr.

Burney could

still

write in Rees's Cyclopedia

little more
that an adagio in a song or solo is, generally,
to
colour
abilities
the
to
left
than an outline
performer's
excite
soon
languor
If not highly embellished, [slow notes]

and disgust in the hearers.'

There is a famous early eighteenth-century Amsterdam
afterwards
edition of Corelli's violin sonatas, which was

showing the adagios printed in parallel

slow notes as ordinarily published (and
and the
nowadays performed, with soporific effect);

in London,
pirated
versions: the long,
as

of very rapid notes as Corelli himself allegedly

There is a large quantity of similar evidence
performed them.
and eighteenth centuries, including
seventeenth
the
from
from English sources. A number of English songs
cascades

examples

of the period are known in the ornamental versions favoured

of improvising instruby particular singers, while the art
mental variations on a given ground was nowhere carried
further than in the examples in Christopher Simpson's

Division Violist

of 1659.

There are instrumental movements by Purcell which, for

their full effect, require a continuous light ripple of added
ornamentation. But the important word here is light.
at all heavy, either in the added notes or in their

Anything
manner of performance, will at once defeat its own object,
which is not to add weight to the texture but to enliven it.
Whether written out by the composer or left to the performer, this kind of figuration should always sound as if it
at that very moment been thought of, so that
seems spontaneous even when it is the result of forethought.
In his vocal movements, Purcell usually wrote out his
with more completeness than he did in
melodic
it

had only

figuration
the instrumental movements just
1

s.v.

Adagio.

mentioned.

Such an

Performing Purcell's Music Today

81

approach to completeness was unusual in a baroque composer. J. S. Bach carried it still further, although even in his
music there are passages in which additional melodic
figuration needs to be added. In PurcelTs music, this need
somewhat more often, bur not so often as in many

arises

other baroque composers.

Melodic figuration added,

or

either

by the performer more

impromptu, or by the editor in writing,

main kinds of embellishment described

less

two

word

is

one of the

by the old

The

other kind consists of a large

'graces'.
English
number of small specific ornaments, of which the most
important are the appoggiatura and the trill. These orna-

ments are sometimes optional; but at other times they are,

in practice, obligatory. Where the context implies an
ornament, the gap in melody and harmony which results

from leaving out that ornament is

really just a plain mistake,

any other kind of wrong note. This is particularly true

of the trills implied by a majority of baroque cadences. In

like

cadential

trills

would

who

habitually left out his

have been sent back to school again to

PurcelTs day, a performer

learn his ;notes.

The

of ornaments in PurcelTs posthumous Choice

table

Collection

for the Harpsichord, edited

(London, 1696), and not actually

compiled by Purcell himself,

is

brief,

known
and

by

his

widow

to have

like all

been

such tables

approximate. (See Facsimiles i and 2.)

Appoggiaturas in the seventeenth century are mostly
1

short to moderate length, whereas those

century tend to be either very short or,
1

A general knowledge of the baroque

ornaments

is

subject, for

of
of the eighteenth
more commonly,

musical contexts which imply

tables. This is a large

more important than any of these

which

may

perhaps refer the reader to

new Grove.

Ornamentation and Ornaments in the

my

articles

on

"^

Vf J

y
^5
34-NHH
*,*-3
-^VHs
^>i'Mi ^iRjy^ ^^
v!v*!111
*
a

"8

~~

J -Hr-U**1X|J^
S^ n^ltP*
,

35

f
I

-""

**rl*$

&
5^

^1*

*1
S' 9
\j

^
Z*

co

3*

<^/J(jTi/>le of (traces proper

to rbeVTol orVwIiji .
>-.

Ml

S*

.'

IT.H,i

II

^j

G5S
^te
'>:ii'ih:ni^tj
jL$P rnwi' t\vl(i:A(fitlcnt tx

Slicked (niia

>ttf^fi
Cxulan'.

.iiii>i(3littJn'
*

^f

,/*%/
fH

Facsimile

2.

Table of Graces from John PlayforcPs

the Skill of Mustek, thirteenth edition, printed for

1697. (This

is

the edition for

which

Purcell

Playford.)

An

Introduction to

Henry Playford

in

had collaborated with

84

Performing

Purcett's

Musk Today

both of the seventeenth and of the eighare

teenth centuries (with almost negligible exceptions)
and
accent
a
with
on,
and
good
begun on their upper notes,
often a decided prolongation of, these initial upper notes.
Since the upper note is normally a discord, the harmonic

very long.

Trills,

effect is at least as

important

as the melodic.

in an ornament wherby no means necessary to put

were
There
a
ever sign appears.
always performers who liked
than
others; and so far as the optional
fewer ornaments
ornaments were concerned, this was a matter left to the
On the other hand he was always at
performer's taste.
within reason, to add ornaments where no signs
liberty,
were written. And he was, of course, obliged to add the full
It is

well

as certain

appoggiacomplement of cadential trills,

absent just because
turas, for which the signs were generally
the need was so obvious.
as

CONTINUO ACCOMPANIMENTS
more or less imPreparing continuo accompaniments
all
was
bass
a
perhaps the greatest of
promptu from figured
the challenges to a performer in connexion with the actual
notes of the music. As this is the" subject of a separate
remarks are in the nature
chapter in this book, the following

of footnotes.

The figures are

the
essentially there to tell

performer what

the written parts are doing; they are not there to restrict
6 or a 7 or even a 9 added to a 5-3 chord, or a
his liberty.

4 or a

added to a 6-3 chord,

is

not a crime, provided

it is

in the style and is musically convincing. 1

As to how elaborate an accompaniment should be, that

depends partly on the performer's

1

taste

(which varied in

T. Arnold, Art of Accompaniment from

XXI, H.
(London, 1931),
cf.

F.

CL

Thorough-Bass

Performing Purcell's Music Today

8s

it does
today) and partly on the requirements of the music (which vary still more). It is always
worth remembering the common-sense rule of damping

PurcelTs time as

down the elaboration when the written parts are themselves

up when they are not.

in elaborate motion, but opening

THE PERFORMER'S SHARE IN THE EXPRESSION

Apart from the notes, there were, in PurcelTs time,
certain conventions influencing the expression
conventions
which are not obvious to unaided musicianship, but which

have to be recovered from contemporary evidence. This

evidence is not always clear enough, or close enough in
time or place, for the matter to be an easy one. But
beginning to agree on the
that we never shall agree

we are

main conclusions, and the fact

on their exact application is

and
of
good
always have been, an important part of the value
entirely desirable, since such individual differences are,

interpretation.

TEMPO AND RUBATO

the responsibilities of the performer. It
is of
paramount importance; but it varies in relation to
many other factors in the interpretation, and even in

Tempo

is

among

of the building. There is

a
thing
'right' tempo in the absolute.
The reader will find in Appendix B what may or
relation to the acoustics

no such

as

may not

own

rules connecting tempo with a variety of

as C and $; and such rules abound in
such
time-signatures
the contemporary text-books. They are, however, so

be PurcelTs

obvious that the practice of

composers was quite arbitrary. This was recognized by the
contradictory as to

make

it

most thoughtful writers from Pierre Maillant in 1610, who

admitted that 'the signs ... are superfluous and useless .
.

Performing Purcell's Music Today

86

Abbe Laugier
everything is now in confusion', down to the
in 1754, who pointed out that 'each interprets the timein the light of his own imagination'. In 1650,
whose
account is particularly full and painstaking, 1
Kircher,
wrote of 'this most confused subject (confusissiniam materthat the most
iam)* and 'utter nonsense (tota farrago)' adding
experienced composers used C and (P Tor one and the
same sign (pro unico signo)'. Heinichen, in course of

movement

another lengthy exposition, likewise warns us of their indiscriminate use in practice. 2 And indeed we find early
editions
different

and manuscripts and even autographs showing

time-signatures in the same passages with remark-

able inconsistency.

It is,

therefore, obviously impossible to

on time-signatures

as a precise indication of tempo.

There was, indeed, an imprecise and unreliable understanding that 2 or (p should suggest a faster tempo than C, and

rely

2 or

very

'faster' signatures often

(p, etc. Those
(but
from always) go with two, rather than four,

than

3)

far

changes of harmony in the bar (an important point for

continue accompanists) ; and sometimes a rhythmic pulse of
two-in-a-bar can be sensed in the music.

But

it is

from the

music and not from the time-signatures that the performer

tempo and his pulse.

has to find his

A change from duple to triple time (shown by 3

or other

triple time-signature) may with much greater reliability be

taken to indicate an increase of speed, often amounting to

|o = CJor2c! = Cj
of the

etc.

Even

here, the actual

amount

a variable quantity, which, like all other

can
decisions,
tempo
only be found by innate musicianship.
Time-words such as grave, adagio, presto, etc. are also
1

increase

is

Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis (Rome,

1650), pp. 679,

682, 684.
*
J.

D. Heinichen, General-Bass (Dresden,

1728), Part

I,

Ch. IV,

48ff.

Performing Purcell's Music Today

87

and inconsistent in their connotations, as may be

Appendix B. The most valuable recommendation

unreliable

seen in

modern performer to bear in mind is that he should not

movements too fast or slow movements too slow.
In Purcell's trio-sonatas we find movements headed
Largo, with the time-signature \, which become much
for a

take fast

too sluggish if taken with anything like the slowness of a

common-time Largo (itself faster, in Purcell, than Grave
or Adagio) they need a good swinging 'tempo di minuetto'
make their natural effect. And, on the other hand, many
;

to

of the

canzona form, need a

moderate' if the rapid changes of
harmony in their close counterpoint are to unfold conallegros, especially those in

very steady

'allegro

vincingly.
Fluctuations within the

main tempo are not ordinarily

in
shown
baroque music, but the evidence tells us that they
were intended. Mace, 1 writing in Purcell's lifetime, wanted
but added:

beginners to learn

strict

When we come

be Masters, so that we can command all manner

to

time-keeping

first,

of Time at our own Pleasures; we then take Liberty, (and very often
to Break Time; sometimes Faster, and sometimes Slower,
.
.)
.

as

we perceive the Nature

of the Thing Requires

This, of course, includes rallentandos, which we find

Frescobaldi describing as early as 1614 in the preface to his
Toccatas
it

of that

year.

Baroque music

is

full

of cadences, and

would be intolerably disturbing to the natural momentum

we slowed down for each of them. Nevermost important ones usually need to be
acknowledged by some yielding in the tempo, however
barest resilience, scarcely perceptible as a
slight. Often the
is
raUentando, quite enough, and anything more than this will
of the music

theless,

if

the

Thomas Mace,

Mustek's

Monument (London,

1676), p. 81.

Music Today
Performing Purcell's

88

sound cumbersome. Yet to avoid any

resilience at all gives

rhythm which does more to

other such misconceptions.
most
than
its true
vitality
destroy
musical
a
certain
in
We need, short,
tact, sensitive above all

the music that machine-like

to the implications of the harmony.

Final cadences naturally incline to slightly more concadences. The habit
spicuous rallentandos than intermediate
of charging through a baroque movement with unyielding

bar or two, and then suddenly putting

the brakes as hard as possible, has no justification

impetus until the

on

all

either in

last

music or in scholarship.

rallentando needs

own

reasonable gradation.
starting early enough
However, it is also true that the rallentando must not be
to take

its

slight rallentando but a shapely one

exaggerated.
most
usual
haps the
requirement.

RHYTHM: DOTS AND INEQUALITY

Rhythm to a modern performer

is

is

per-

a matter governed

mainly by the lengths of the written notes ; but to a baroque

performer it was more a matter of expression, and was
governed largely by convention.
In modern music, a dot after a note increases

by

half; not,

of course,

precisely, but

freedom of expression permits.

In baroque notation the dot
but it

may also

as

nearly

as

its

length

ordinary

the same effect;

any other appropriate

may have

increase the length

by

amount.

we may often enough meet with a melodic

which one or more dotted notes occur. If these are
an integral part of the melody, in no way standing out
from any other part of it, and in no way dominating the
rhythm of it, then their value will probably be very much
the same as the modern value: i.e. as
nearly exact as free
For example,

line in

Performing Purceffs Music Today

89

expression (whether then or now) permits. But if they stand

out from the melody, or dominate its
rhythm, as independ-

ent rhythmic figures in their

own

convention applies to them which

accepted,

follow

it

by

baroque

no longer currently
though to some extent all good musicians still
without realizing that they do so. By this con-

vention, the dot

dot

right, then a
is

decidedly lengthened, the note after the

correspondingly shortened, and the two are separated
a silence of articulation taken out of the time of this
is

is

We

lengthened dot
generally call this 'double-dotting',
though without meaning that the lengthening has to be
exactly that. In place of the silence of articulation, the notes

may

alternatively

be slurred, with a more expressive but

less brilliant effect.

The following extracts from the Chaconne in PurcelTs

Trio Sonatas (No. VI of the second set), show examples
of dotted

notes:

Ex.13

As

written

and (approximately) performed

Bar 55
etc.

fir
Ex.15

Ex.14

As

written

As conventionally performed

(approx.)

Barj36
etc.

GHP

Performing PwrceWs Music Today

go

There are further extensions of the same principle:

JT3
8

].

may become
may become

approximately

JL

ma7 become
may become
stand for

J5

J 7

/Jgg

J?/jfl3

JTTO

or J

iU almost certainly

and
In

so

73

/J..

may become

may

J.

with numerous other

j JJ3 or JffJD

become

7 f J"J,

possibilities

^ or

of the same kind.

compound triple time (whether written as such, or as trip-

lets in

common time, &c.), the normal practice in seventeenth-

and early eighteenth-century music

/'L

and

iv may both stand for

is

as follows:

/Jj.

An example of this occurs in bar 174 of the sameChaconne:

Ex.17

Ex.16

As

written

As intended

m LL/

etc.

*'

Performing Pwcell's Music Today

91

Individual instances of the performance of dotted notes

are often difficult to decide; but a few doubtful decisions

way are of no real importance. What is of importance

the radical improvement in zest and crispness which
follows any reasonably enterprising application of the
either

is

principle

Few

itself.

changes in the direction of greater

1
authenticity have a more enlivening effect.
further rhythmic convention concerns 'inequality'.
this
term is meant the treatment of a series of notes,
By

neither very fast nor very slow, mainly in stepwise motion,

and written evenly. They are, however, performed unevenly, 'because', wrote Saint-Lambert in 1702, 'this unevenness makes them more graceful'. 2
The situation in which the convention of 'inequality'
applies

were never

clearly defined,

and they

often difficult to recognize in practice.

may

are,

once again,

The following

hints

be helpful. 3

The notes to which 'inequality' can be applied will be the

shortest notes to occur at all numerously in the movement.
If these shortest notes are either faster or slower than a
5

moderate speed, 'inequality becomes ineffectual, and perhaps unpleasant; it should therefore not be applied to them.

movement

has a vigorous or march-like

can
character, 'inequality'
only detract from that character,
and should not be applied. Further, although a few leaps
occurring in a mainly stepwise progression do not pre-

Again, if the

clude inequality, a melody mainly progressing

by

leaps

Many excellent suggestions for the true conventional performance of

dotted notes in Purcell will be found in the new (not in the old) volumes
of the Purcell
Professor
*

Society's edition,

Michel de Saint-Lambert,
1

now

under the general editorship of

Anthony Lewis.
Principes du Clavecin (Paris, 1702).

have gone into somewhat more

detail in Grove, s.v. *notes ine'gales* ;

but the main principles are those given here.

Performing Purcell's Music Today

g2
is

not of the kind to which 'inequality' was intended to

apply.

The convention of 'notes indgales' was most highly

cultivated in (but not confined to) France. Performers could
lilt
by somewhat lengthening
give the notes an expressive
the first and shortening the second (lourer) ; they could give
them piquancy by decidedly shortening the first and length-

ening the second

(couler}\

if,

among

the evenly-written

notes thus performed unevenly, they came across some

notes written dotted, they marked the contrast by very

decidedly 'double-dotting' them (pointer),

Examples of the couler are very commonly found written

out in Purcell's vocal parts, as if he particularly favoured this

and wanted to make sure of getting it.

lourer, however, was always the most typical of the
various forms of 'inequality', and there seems little doubt
effect

The

from his performers in any case.

been paramount in England under
remained strong even in Purcell's more
And in many of his passages this French lilt

that Purcell got this

French influence had

Charles

II.

It

Italianate style.
is

so beautiful that

it

seems innately

as

well as historically

probable. This probability is always at its strongest where

the notes (or enough of them to drop the hint) are written
slurred in pairs (as they must anyhow be slurred in performance). If three or more are written slurred together, 'inequality' is ruled out; and there are various other means of

contra-indicating it, none

I know in Purcell.

of which, however, occurs

as far

as

The

lourer

and its accompaning pointer are both illustrated

in the following example from bars I44ff. of Purcell's ode

'Hark, how the wild musicians sing'. 1
1

Vol. 27 of the Purcell Society's new edition, ed. Dennis Arundell

(but the lourer and pointer are
suggestion, not

my

his)*

Performing Purcell's Music Today

to

joys

beau -

which

ty

and youth

93

in - vite

PHRASING AND ARTICULATION

of good musicians has got into
present generation
close enough touch with Purcell to grasp his phrase endings
these phrase endings,
but in

The

performance

intuitively;

This
though recognized, are seldom made audible enough.
is not necessarily a matter of holding up the time; it is
a matter of taking a short 'silence of phrasing' out of
usually
the time of the

last

note of the old phrase before beginning

it
may be necessary to add a

the new. Less frequently,

'comma' to the time.

phrase, we
a
ability to sustain

need more

Within the
tion'.

The

in Purcell as in Bellini;
the line.

The note

'silences

of

articula-

smooth cantabile is as necessary

but so is a sense of where to break

before a syncopated note, for example,

a silence of articulation (as if, in

needs to be shortened

by

Performing Purcell

94

modern

Music Today

were a staccato dot over it). And

no doubt, on a comparison of many small

notation, there

there can be
points

of evidence, that the ordinary bread-and-butter

manner of stringing together unslurred notes of moderate

duration was less smooth and more articulate than our
modern training suggests. Attention to this most important
detail brings immediate vitality to many quick movements
in Purcell

which might otherwise move

His romanticism

and needs

is

little

stolidly.

of a more aerated brand than "Wagner's,

a lighter texture.

TEXTURE AND DYNAMICS

This lightening of the texture is particularly important
when, as so often in Purcell, that texture is of a contrapuntal nature. In the string fantasies, for example, and to
some extent in the trio sonatas, each player should take his

entry decisively and with that indescribable sense of significance which distinguishes thematic from subordinate
matter; then as he hears the next entry coming in, he should
get out of the

way by

lowering both the volume and the

of his playing. That was the method recommended

in the sixteenth century for polyphonic music, and it is
just as valuable in Purcell, or for that matter in Bach. The
intensity

meant to do, no one has to force

of
through
competing sound, and the music
makes sense without an effort. The texture itself glitters
with ever-changing lights and shades.
structure stands out as

his entry

it is

a mass

The same play of light and shade is needed in the smaller

dynamic contrasts and gradations. The theory now fashionable with some reformers under the name of 'terracedynamics', to the effect that baroque musicians favoured a

long unbroken stretch on one dynamic level followed by

another level similarly sustained, is not
supported by the

Performing Parcel? s Music Today

g$

*We play Loud or Soft, according to our fancy, or

humour of the music
some time ... in one and the

evidence.

the

same Note' (Simpson, 1659) ;* 'The Viol and Violin excell in

lowdning, softning, and continuing a Note or Sound'
2
'swellings of prodigious length' (Raguenet,
(Locke, 1672)
;

1702)

'courage as well as

skill to fill

and swell where the

4
required an emphasis' (North, early eighteenth
century, but reminiscing of PurcelTs lifetime) these are
typical phrases, and the last draws attention to a crucial

harmony

principle.

Normal

crescendos and diminuendos, louds and

softs, are integral to baroque music in so far as they grow

out of that music, following rises and falls in the melodic

outline and intensifications

and

relaxations in the

harmony.

only dynamic
imposed on the music for effect's
sake which are harmful. But this is basically a principle of

It is

effects

good musicianship

in

any style.

INSTRUMENTAL STYLE AND TECHNIQUE

Modern wind

players generally fall in with the technical

requirements of seventeenth or eighteenth-century music

very readily, provided they are well coached in the stylistic
requirements already discussed. This

is

not the case, however,

has evistring players, whose basic training

The
norm.
from
the
further
much
baroque
dently diverged

with modern

2nd ed.
Christopher Simpson, Division Violist (London, 1659),
Nathalie
ed.
10
London,
Dolmetsch,
1667,
p.
(facsimile
(Division-Viol)
1955).
2
p.

Matthew Locke,

Observations upon a Late "Book, (London, 1672),

3<5-

Francois Raguenet,

Music

(Paris, 1702),

O. Strunk, Musical
4

Engl

Quarterly,

MS. Autobiography,

passage Sect. 94ff

Comparison Between the French and Italian

E. Galliard (London, 1709), ed.

transl. ? J.

XXXD,

3, p.

426.

ed.Jessop, (London, 1890): see the whole

Music Today
Performing PurcelYs

g6

modern Tourte-pattern incurved bow is also rather different

from the old straight or slightly outcurved bow in its effect
on tone-quality and articulation; but this difference, though
not by any means negligible, can be minimized with

fair

success in practice.

The primary

difficulty

is

to articulate an ordinary series

detached notes without too

much

legato or too

of

much

Our present 'detache' is not, in fact, detached

staccato is too detached, and our spiccato too
Our
enough.
staccato.

out of the ordinary for a regular bffect (though

it is

perfectly

in style and period

The evidence 1 for the early technique of the violin points
to a bowing style well 'into the string' for the body of 'the
as a virtuoso effect).

note.

At the

join, the elasticity

of the

bow

is

allowed to

pressure almost, but not quite to the extent of

lighten
the
string. This gives more resonance between
leaving
its

more separation than the

more relaxed feeling than the spiccato. I have

strokes than the staccato, but

detache, and a

suggested calling

it

the 'sprung detache'.

For moderately short notes the best part of the bow is

normally about half-way between the point and the middle,

with an easy movement of the arm and a relaxed wrist. The

flow of notes should, indeed, soujid easy and relaxed
neither forced

The
the

nor

the evidence and as

be.

nor merged.
of
such
notes at
taking
practice
air is absolutely unwarranted
by
harmfully out of style as it could

sticky; neither disconnected

frequent modern
heel and from the

The

notes sound not

less,

but more

brilliant if

they

are allowed to ripple along without the least sense

of

effort.
1

the

A selection will be found in my contribution on Violin Playing to

new

Grove. See also

David D. Boyden, 'The Violin and

Its

Tech-

nique in the Eighteenth Century', Musical Quarterly, Jan. 1950, p. 18.

Performing PurceWs Music Today

The next consideration is

able

how many

gj

the quality of tone.

early descriptions

It is remarkof good string tone (e.g.

Playford, Simpson, and Mace from late seventeenth-century

England alone) include the adjective 'clear'. Leopold Mozart

mid-eighteenth century wanted 'an honest and

virile tone from the violin' ; and it is a
suggestive description.

in the

Almost any kind of violin tone, including that produced in

high positions and by every variety of bow speed and
pressure, has some, place in early violin playing; the virtuoso
were exploring most available possibilities soon

violinists

after PurcelTs death, if not before.

But for average workaday

purposes, and

certainly for the greater part of PurceLTs

string writing, the tone wanted is indeed clear and trans-

parent, honest and virile. That means using mainly the

lower positions; and above all it means using mainly a
steady speed of bow stroke with a fair pressure into the
string.

Too much bow

i.e.

too

fast

and too

light

on

the string is one of the chief mistakes detracting from the

natural brilliance and crisp sparkle proper to early string
writing.

Accentuation should also be crisp rather than massive,

and more often achieved by an instantly released fingerpressure

on the bow than by heavy arm-pressure or by

from the air. A silence of articulation

taking the attack

will greatly increase

before this crisp pressure

the effect of

accentuation.

Vibrato is entirely legitimate, there being a number of

seventeenth-century references to its use and techniques.
Some authors preferred to treat it as an ornament for rather
as an enlivenment
sparing use only; but others regarded it
of the normal tone. In the 1730$, Geminiani 1 unreservedly
1

F. Geminiani,

simile, ed.

Art of Playing on

the Violin

David D. Boyden, Oxford,

1952).

(London, 1740,

feep. 8,

Music Today
Performing PurcelYs

gS

recommended
for this Reason

it as
it

making the 'Sound more

should be

made

agreeable, and
use of as often as possible'.

undoubtedly sound anachan

ronistic, just
opulent quality of tone sounds anachronseldom sound massive in any way.
music
should
istic. Early

But

a very massive vibrato does

as

perhaps, best sums up the difference. The

Wagnerian style has weight and power; its climaxes achieve
a wonderful intensity. The style of Purcell is sharper and

And

that,

depends more on impetus. This does not make it any the less
intense. But its intensity has to be built up in a more concentrated way.

PURCELL'S DANCES
By Imogen

Hoist

Playford's English Dancing Master, or Plaine and easie Rules

for the Dancing of Country Dances, is one of the few surviving
sources of English dance notation in the late seventeenth

century. The ninth edition, published in 1695, contains the

tune of the hornpipe in the first act of Dioclesian. It is renamed The Siege of Limerick and is given with full instructions as to how it is to be danced. The steps and figures are

would have been danced in stage

of
Dioclesian, for the Playford country dances
performances
were mostly longways for as many as will', and were meant
for social enjoyment, not for spectacular entertainment.
But the 'plaine and easie Rules' do, at any rate, give us some
of the ways in which Purcell's music was actually danced
not the same

during the

as those that

last

year of his

life.

And,

as such,

they can be

helpful in phrasing his instrumental music, for the steps

fit the tunes as
inevitably as the words fit the songs.
Today, when dancing a seventeenth-century country

dance, one of the

first

and most obvious things that one

Performing Purcelfs Music Today

learns about the music

is

that

all

Without them, the dancers would

side of the set, with no
hope of getting back

The convention of

partners.

pp

the repeats are essential.

be stranded on the wrong

playing

to their

own

an instrumental

repetition piano or pianissimo

hall,

may have its uses in the concert

but it is seldom helpful to the dancers, who find infinite

variety in going through the

with each

same pattern of movements

new

couple they meet.

At every double-bar, the dancers make a very
slight
obeisance to their partners or 'contrary' partners. This courtesy

movement, which is scarcely more than a nod of recogno extra time to perform; it is only at the

nition, needs

very end of the dance that partners 'honour' each other with
a full-length bow and curtsy, to a rallentando in the music.

The

of a calculated slowing down at any other

cadence can have a disastrous effect, for the dancer uses the
least hint

courtesy movement, with

its

slight give at the knees, as a

that will carry him into the

If the player digs himself in at the cadence, the
unfortunate dancer is unable to adjust his balance: he

kind of springboard for the

lift

new phrase.
suffers a

physical shock that

sensation,

when going

is

just as uncomfortable as the

downstairs,

of landing on

a last
step

that isn't there.

This wrong phrasing can be particularly frustrating in the

cadences of a Purcell hornpipe, such as the following
example from Abdelazar, which, in the early eighteenth
century,

was danced

as

'The Hole in the Wall':

Ex.20

Even

sensitive string-players

have been

known

to arrive

Performing Purcell's Music Today

100

note with an unwanted

that interrupts the

flow of the music and wrecks the dancers' hopes of an

on

this last

One of the

instinctively-phrased repeat.

non-dancer to realize what

'There's not a swain',

stress

is

wanted

where

easiest

ways for

to look at the song

the words take care of the
is

phrasing and dynamics:

Ex.21

a swain

There's not

on

the plain

would be

could you but, could you but, could you but

But

you ap-pear so

sev-ere,

as

bless'd

on

That trembling with fear

me,

me

smile.

my

heart goes

^
pit-a-pat,
It is

pit-a-pat,

pit-a-pat

the

all

a perfect hornpipe: so perfect that

it is

while.

almost im-

through
sung. At the
the
dancers'
movement
as in other
cadences,
courtesy
is
in
the
harmonies:
the sixalready implied
hornpipes
possible to

sit still

it

while hearing

it

four chord needs to be given its suitable weight before it

can relax at the third-beat resolution. When a Purcell dance

tune is phrased as unerringly as if it were a song, the dancer

can respond to any rubato the player may wish to make,
and, if he

is

sure

of his musician, he himself can make an

unrehearsed rubato in his dancing,

knowing that the player

accompany him just as if he were a singer.
There are other lessons to be learnt from dancing Purcell's

will

etc.

Performing Purcell's Music Today

hornpipes.

not be too

have only

from

101

One of the most important is that the tempo must

fast. With one
step to each beat, the dancer may
six beats in

to join hands with

which

to cast off, (that is, turn

away
the set to the second
place,
his neighbour, and to come
to

his partner) to

go down

up again

his original place. In order to cover the distance in six

make a wide sweep in the

he
will
casting
figure;
probably lean over at an
to
himself
round
the
corner, and his steps will
angle
help
have to have the weight of his whole body behind them if
steps,

the dancer will need to

when

off,

they are to carry him back to his place by the end of the
second bar. If the tune is played too fast, he will be compelled to cut his corner too close, with the result that his
energy will fritter away in little upright, mincing steps.

Another fault to be avoided in playing hornpipes is the

habit of marking the syncopated notes with unnecessary
accents. Seventeenth-century musicians called their syncopation 'driving'.

The dancer

relies

on the impetus of the

driving to carry him along; accents on the syncopated

notes create pitfalls of static silence that trip him up on his

journey. If there are to be any

stresses

on the syncopated

notes, they must be flexible stresses within a long, continuous

line of melody.

Some

instrumentalists, in their

misguided

efforts to

be

helpful to the dancers, are inclined to destroy the long line

of a tune by deliberately making all their staccato notes too
prickly.
it

may

But country dancing, however buoyant and

be,

is

essentially

airy

a legato occupation. There are,

of course, frequently recurring moments when, for the

1
'Syncope, or Driving a Note, is, when after some snorter Note which
begins the Measure or Half-measure, there immediately follow two,
three, or more Notes of a greater quantity, before you meet with
another short Note (like that which began the driving.)' Christopher

Simpson, Compendium, 1665.

Performing Parcel? s Music Today

102
fraction

of a second, the dancer's two

feet are

both in the

air.

But this does not mean that he consciously goes through the
motions of picking his feet up. Only beginners do that, and
they so soon get exhausted that they either give up altogether
or else acquire enough technique to carry their own weight
effortlessly over the ground. The instrumentalist's staccato
notes in a Purcell dance need to be as casual

and

light-

hearted as the singer's consonants in the 'pit-a-pat' of 'There's

not a swain'. When this happens, there can be no danger of

the dancers wearing themselves out unnecessarily; they will

be able to move, with the freedom of confidence, to the

music that has been described

dance

to'.

as 'the easiest

in the world to

9
Purcell's

FRANKLIN

Handwriting
B.

ZIMMERMAN

The

accuracy and the completeness of a list of any composer's autographs both depend upon the certainty with

which his handwriting can be identified. PurcelTs hand 1 is

one of those which are almost always immediately recogFor this reason it has not been necessary to fall back
the
analytical methods of the calligrapher or the
upon
papyrologist in identifying the autographs listed in Appendix

nizable.

A. The 'personality' revealed in PurcelTs handwriting if

I may go so far without
venturing into the necromantic
realm of graphology 2 makes so strong an impression

upon the observer

forgotten.
scarcely

For

seem

that once seen

this

reason,

it is

not likely to be

subsequent

to require comparison

identifications

with known authentic

autographs.
Nevertheless, there are a great

now

many

Purcell autographs
are

missing which may one day be discovered. There

also a great

many manuscripts labelled

'PurcelPs autograph*

which are not in his hand. For these two reasons, there is
some purpose in outlining here a few of the characteristic
of Purcell's handwriting.
robust style of his literal hand best described,
The only previous study on Purcell's autographs is A. Hughes-

features

The
1

Hughes, 'Henry Purcell's Handwriting', Musical Times, 1896, pp. 81-3.

2
For one such venture c F. H. Walker, 'Purcell's Handwriting',
Monthly Musical Record,

LXXH,

1942, pp. 155-7-

PurcelYs Handwriting

1 04

perhaps,

as a 'deliberate scrawl'

is

quite

unmistakable.

The

hand is perpendicular, though not rigidly or painstakingly

'full-blown and boldly formed. Even
so, and each letter is
in the overall
something schoolboyish
hand of a man
the
is
this
plainly
appearance of the writing
who thought clearly and methodically and knew what he
was about. In this connexion it is worth noting that errors
of concentration and miscalculations of

though, there

is

indicating lapses
available space are quite rare in PurcelTs autograph
done in a hurry.
even in those

copies-

apparently
PurcelTs musical hand, though equally characteristic, was
simulated by followers and admirers. This may
more
easily

explain

men

why a number

of manuscripts in the hands of other

one time or another
For this reason, it may be

have been attributed to Purcefi at

Section III of Appendix A).

(see
well to single out here a few of the most characteristic
features of his musical as well as of his literal hand.

Of the

Purcell used, the

capital letters

be the most
T, and Y.

characteristic:

The forms

following seem to

L, M, O, P, S,
most
commonly
they
be seen in the plates

A, C, E, H,

I,

of these letters as

occur in PurcelTs autographs

may

lower-case letters the

reproduced with this essay. Among
same may be said of PurcelTs d (nearly always with a very
are two forms, the modern e
large loop), e (of which, there
and the old backwards 0), f, h, s, t y, and z. Other signs
}

important for purposes

of identification include the amperc

'

sand (&) and the contractions y e

of these may be seen in the plates.

The most

easily recognizable

used include the

Of

clefs,

G-clef

(as

shown in
and

Again, most

musical signs which Purcell

key-signatures, and time-signatures.

these the clefs are pethaps the

Purcellian

^ Vmost

distinctive.

The

the Monteverdi transcript)

quite
late
and
in
both
of
his
early
usage
typical
is

IV. Parcel's handwriting. British

Museum, Royal Music MS.

index. (Reproduced by courtesy of

the Trustees

of

the British

20.h.8, front

Museum.)

PurcelYs Handwriting

The

shown on

05

same

manuscripts.
plate are even
more characteristic. Incidentally, these are a rather early
form of the Purcellian Oclef, which evolved from this
C-clefs

this

"

in the very early autographs to this:

f^
in the later ones. The transitional state of these clefs
sign:

r"

is

where both types occur side

a similar evolution from
The
F-clef
underwent
side.
by
forms
are
to be found in Plate III.
Both
to
ffi
Other important Purcellian signs include the pause signs
and the 'end of composition' signs.
I cannot end without mentioning one of the most distinctive features of PurcelTs handwriting: the exact placing
of all notational symbols. These symbols are so placed that
scarcely ever is there any room for doubt as to their meaning,
even in the Gresham Manuscript or in some of the later
works in the Royal Music autograph, which betray signs
of considerable haste. Even the large, sprawling minims
and semibreves (like those shown in the Monteverdi
particularly clear in Plate

III,

transcript)

may be seen to have been carefully placed, so that

the reader or performer cannot have the slightest doubt as to

more than once served

PurcelTs intentions. This feature has

to disprove a supposed autograph, which might otherwise

have been considered just possibly genuine.

HHP

Appendix

PURCELL'S AUTOGRAPHS 1
NIGEL FORTUNE

and

FRANKLIN

B.

ZIMMERMAN

Introduction

Works by Purcell in his autograph

Works not by Purcell but in his hand

I
II

IE Supposititious autographs

IV

Reliable non-autograph manuscript sources of major works by Purcell

ABBREVIATIONS
Music Library, Barber
sity of Birmingham

Barber

Institute

of Fine

Arts,

Univer-

Museum, London

B.M.

British

Bodleian

Bodleian Library, Oxford

Fitzwilliam

Fitzwilliam

Royal Academy

Royal Academy of Music, London

Sibley Library, Eastman School of Music, Rochester,
N.Y.
Memorial Library of Music, Stanford University,

Sibley

Stanford

Museum, Cambridge

California.
St.

Tenbury

Michael's College, Tenbury, Worcs.

INTRODUCTION
Section

of the following catalogue is basically a list of works by Purcell

surviving in his autograph. First, the contents of the four volumes

preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the British Mus-

eum and Gresham

College, London, and consisting to a great extent of

PurcelTs music in his own hand, are listed as they occur. Works not by

Purcell copied
x

by him and works by

Purcell copied

by amanuenses

We

gratefully acknowledge the assistance given by Mr. Watkins

Shaw, Miss M. C. Cram of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Miss Pamela
J. Willetts of the British Museum, the Librarians of the Fitzwilliam

Museum, Cambridge, and of the Royal Academy of Music, London, and

the Gresham Committee, in the preparation of this appendix.

Appendix

107

presumably closely connected with him are included here in order that
the reader may obtain a complete view of these
important volumes. This

with a list, arranged alphabetically by titles, of all other

autograph copies of PurcelTs works, which are to be found in single
manuscripts or in single gatherings within composite manuscripts.
section ends

Section II is a list of isolated copies of works by other composers which

be found in PurcelTs hand in composite manuscripts.

are to

Section

III is

list

of sources that have in the past been thought to be

autographs of Purcell. This list would have been very long had we not
decided to mention only those manuscripts which have been 'established* as

autographs in various catalogues and other published sources

and to ignore those which appear to have been

labelled 'autograph' for

other than scholarly reasons.

To complement

these

lists

IV

Section

indicates reliable manuscript

of major works by Purcell for which there are no known autographs. To keep this list from swelling beyond reasonable limits the
only works considered are Dido and Aeneas and other (so-called) operas,
sources

the Morning and Evening Service in

and the two sets of trio-sonatas.

flat,

the Te

Deum

and

Jubilate,

In all these lists the titles of vocal works are given in modern spelling.
Headings written by Purcell himself to indicate a date or the genre to

or other important information are

particular work belongs
marks
within,
exactly as he wrote them, except
reproduced
quotation
that the abbreviations 'ye* and *yt' and one or two other contractions are

which a

written out in

full

and one or two other

trifling

made on grounds of practicability. Where

genre

we

have added

it

after the title to

adjustments have been

Purcell does not state the

correspond with the usual

modern terminology.

I.

WORKS BY PURCELL

There survive three large

appear to be fair copies of his

folio

IN HIS

AUTOGRAPH

volumes in which Purcell made what

own and other composers* works, arranged

by categories. It is the contents of these volumes that take pride of place

in the following catalogue. The first (Etzwilliam MS. 88) is dated 1677
to 1682; the second (B.M. Add. MS. 30930) appears to have been
(?)
about 1680 and continued for about three years; and the third
begun

1681 to 1690. The

(B.M. Royal iMusic MS.20.h.8) runs from about
is the same in all three, and each page contains sixteen staves.
paper

10$

Appendix

HTZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE. MS. 88(23

(l)

13)

The first of the three volumes of fair copies (measuring 44 X 28 cm.) is

devoted to anthems. Most of them are by other composers, flourishing
either before or during PurcelTs time. This is therefore an important
source of music that may be expected to have influenced the composer in
his formative years.

end of the volume an index in PurcelTs hand. The

of the front index has for long been a source of dispute:
has been stated, categorically, to be 1673 and 1681 and, tentatively,

There

is

at either

date at the head

it

to be I687 1 (a date that cannot be taken seriously). It is a very difficult

date to decipher, and it is only after an exhaustive scrutiny that we are
for the

first

true reading
that

on

time prepared to advance it here as our opinion that the

is '1677'. This reading accords, moreover, with the fact

pv and I4v Blow is styled 'Mr' and on

on 10 December 1677.

fF.

28v

'Dr':

Blow

received his doctorate

2
Hughes-Hughes says that the forty-two leaves containing the anthems
end of the volume are not in PurcelTs hand. "We can see

at the front

why he was led to

thirty leaves

say

might be

this,

but would say ourselves that only the first

and that anyway the assertion

called in question

requires substantiation. Certainly if these leaves are not in PurcelTs hand

many others in the manuscript that are extremely similar to them

then

must

also

be thrown open to doubt. It is our belief that these leaves

of the volume) are in PurcelTs hand; that they were written

(like the rest

in his late 'teens

when

his

handwriting was in a transitional

state;

and

that they are almost certainly his earliest surviving autographs.

Front end On a fly-leaf: 'A Table of all the anthems contain*d in this
the I3th Anno Domini 1677*

book Sep:

Subheadings, original
Folios

By Humfrey

4
7
1

subheadings, and
compilers' notes

Titles

O praise the Lord

O Lord, my God
Like

Verse anthem

as the hart

G. E. P. Arkwright, 'PurcelTs church music' (Musical Antiquary,

I, 1909-10, pp. 241 and 243); idem, in the Purcell Society edition, vol.
Xnia: Sacred Music, I (London, 1921), pp. ii-iii; A. Hughes-Hughes,
'Henry Purcell's Handwriting' (Musical Times, 1896, p. 82); and J. A.
Fuller-Maidand and A. H. Mann, Catalogue of the Music in the Fitec

william
2

Museum, Cambridge (London, 1893),

loc.cit.

p. 37.

Appendix

109
Subheadings, original
subheadings, and

Folios

compilers* notes

9v By Blow
14V
21
By Humfrey
23V

sing unto the

31

Anthem

in

minor, in

four parts
Cry aloud

Sing unto the Lord

By Locke

When the

36v
38v

Verse

Sing we merrily
Lord, teach us to number
Lift up your heads
Unidentified instrumental

movement
28v By Blow

Lord

Son of man

The Lord
1

hear thee
will hear what the Lord
will say

Reverse end

On a fly-leaf:

'God

r-

bless

Henry

I42V By Blow

O Lord, I have sinned

141
138
136

God is

By O. Gibbons
I34V By Blow
I33V By Locke
129

By Byrd

I27V By
126

Tallis

By Byrd

125
124

By O. Gibbons
I22V By W. Mundy
I2ov By T. Tomkins

Purcell/ 1682

O Lord, make thy servant

Lift

up your heads

II9V By N. Giles
ii 8

Botfett

Hear

116

Purcell

God
Save me,
Sing we merrily

112

Child

[By O. Gi&fon/l

our hope
Full anthem with verse
God, wherefore art thou?
Hosanna to the Son of David Full anthem
Save me, O God
Verse anthem
Lord, let me know mine end
Full anthem with verse
Turn thy face from my sins
Bow thine ear, O Lord
Full anthem
1 call and cry
Prevent us,
Lord

O Lord, I bow the knee

O Lord, I have loved
O give thanks

By
By
H4v By

th
September the 10

Verse anthem

my prayer, O God

Almighty and everlasting God

Full

anthem (anonymous

here) ; only the first few

bars copied, with space

to continue

in

By

108

By Blow
By Purcell

icx5v

Purcell

Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven

soul is vex'd
God,
Hear me,
Lord, and that

My

Verse anthem

my

soon (second version)

104
102
100

By Blow
By Purcell
93v By Blow

99
96

Bow down thine ear

Man

that

is

born

Remember not,

Funeral sentences

O Lord

O Lord God of my salvation

O God, thou hast cast us out

Christ being risen

dead

from the

Full

anthem

Verse anthem
Full anthem, with verse
Verse anthem

no

Appendix

A
Subheadings, original

By

92

subheadings, and
compilers' notes

Titles

Folios

O Lord God of hosts

O God, thou art my God

Purcell

89

Full

anthem with verse

Unfinished, -with space to

continue

86

Lord, how long wilt thou be

angry?
Lord, thou art my God

83v

Hear

8yv

my prayer, O

Full

anthem with verse

Verse anthem
Full anthem. Unfinished,
with space to continue

Lord

(no complete copy known)

(ll)

BRITISH MUSEUM. ADD. MS. 30930

the three big books of fair copies (measuring 40 -7

two types of music. The front of the book
accommodates
24-8 cm.)
is devoted mainly to three- and four-part hymns with continue, which
are settings of metrical versions of the psalms. At the back is instrumental

The second of

the exception of a few random notes in the middle of 44

otherwise blank), the whole of this volume is in PurcelTs hand.

music.

With

(which

is

Some autographs must have been removed at an early date and may
have been replaced by blank leaves: 1 in fact, on f. 3 yv Joseph Warren,
a nineteenth-century owner of the volume, wrote: *io leaves have been
abstracted here, including the whole of the 4 th 5 th 6^. yth. gth. Sonatas.
The above is the 9^-.' (He kter crossed out '7 th 8 *&'.) At all events
the volume contains many blank leaves, which are of exactly the same
sort of paper as those that are written on; while a number of these
leaves appear between separate items of music others actually occur during
the course of compositions that Purcell must be assumed to have copied
-

on

successive leaves.

It

is

probable that

this

eccentric sequence

of

leaves originated accidentally when the volume was rebound early

2
in 1896: certainly when Warren described this volume he mentioned

blank leaves only between and not during the course of works, and,
moreover, his statement that PurcelTs remark on f.5iv is 'followed by
9 blank, pages' is no longer true (there are seven including 51 v itself).
Front end Title
Dom. 1680'

on one of the

Folios

Titles

fly-leaves:

"The Works/of Hen;

Purcell./ Anno

Subheadings, original
subheadings, and

Plung' d in the confines of despair

O all ye people

"When on

6
1

art
2

compilers' notes

Hymn.

my sickbed

For an amplification of these theories cf. Denis Stevens, *PurcelTs

of fantasia* (Musk and Letters, XXXffi, 1952, pp. 341-2).
cf.

W.

Boyce, Cathedral Music, ed.

vol. n, pp. 18-19.

J.

Warren (London,

1849),

Appendix

111
Subheadings, original

Folios

Titles

7v Gloria

C minor

Patri in

8v Jehovah,

subheadings, and
compilers' notes

13

multi
Beati omnes qui timent
Domine, non est exaltatum

14

Lord, not to us

ii

Canon
Motet 1

quam

Motet. Only the first few bars copied,

with space to continue (no other copy

known)

I5V Ah! few and

full

Unfinished, with space to continue (no complete copy known)

Hymn. Unfinished, with space to con-

Hymn.
of sorrows

tinue.
18
O Lord our governor
2ov O, I'm sick of life

22

Lord,

Hymn

O Lord, and that soon

Anthem.

Only the first

copied, with little space to
continue (no complete copy of this
version known, though it is scarcely
different from the second in FitzwUliam

MS.
Early,

Unfinished.

section

version)

24v Since God so tender a regard

26
28

is

known)

can suffer

23V Hear me,

(first

Probably only one section

lacking (no complete copy

O Lord, my fainting soul

O Lord, the great

88)

Hymn

Hear me,
support

Reverse end

No.

71

'Here begineth the

69V No.

Very

3
i

68

No.

67

'Fantazia'

66

'Fantazia'

FantaziaY

65

'Fantazia'

64

'Fantazia*

63

*Fantazia*

62

'Fantazia'

61

'Fantazia'

60

'Fantazia'

slightly unfinished,

'Here begineth the 4 part FantaziaY

"June the 10. 1680.' The tides are always
at the top and the dates between the top

two

staves

'June the n. 1680.'

'June the 14. 1680.'
'June the 19. 1680*
*J une the 22. 1680.*
'June the 23 : 80.*
'June the 30. 80:*
'August the 18 80.*
is

not certain;

'16'

59
58

3 part

with space to
continue (no complete copy known)

7ov No. 2

and

it

The day of the month

was

altered

from both

'19*

'Fantazia*

'August the 31: 1680.*

'Fantazia'

*Feb. the

24th

1682/3.' Unfinished.

Only

the first 2^ lines copied, with space to

continue (no complete copy known).
This looks more like the beginning of a
sonata than of a fantasia
1 Purcell did not himself use the

Latin settings

from

English.

term 'motet';

we

use

it

here to distinguish

112

Appendix

A
Subheadings, original
subheadings, and
compilers' notes

Titles

Folios
'Pavan*

57
56
54

'Chacony*

53

Two

5 iv

No.

50
48

'Fantazia

'Overture'
short dances in
52V Another short dance in

Incomplete. First violin and bass only

Incomplete. First violin and bass only, on
the bottom half of the page. At the end:
'Finis'. These last three pieces no doubt
form part of a suite, of which the overture was probably intended as the first

movement

'In

'Here Begineth the 5 Part: Fantasias'

upon one Note*

nomine'

(in 6 parts)

'Fantazias

of 5

Parts*

'Here Begineth the

taziaY

<5,

7,

&

8 part

Fan-

'7 Parts'

'In nomine*
46
43V No. i in B minor

'Sonnata's.'

of

IV

These are from the 10 Sonatas

parts, for

two

violins, bass

and

continue (London, 1697)

4iv 'Sonnata* No. 2 in E flat

39V 'Sonnata* No. 3 in A minor

This sonata, which lacks most of the

continue, ends on a small piece of a
leaf numbered 37*, bound in at the top
of the volume. On the reverse is part
of the Sonata No. 4 in
minor, in
PurcelTs hand, not copied on to fit but
before
there
already
cutting. See note

to

37v 'Sonnata* No. 9 in F

32 below

On f.36v three bars have been pasted over

the original

35v 'Sonnata' No. 7 in

34 'Sonnata' No. 8 in
'Sonnata* No. 4 in
32

'Sonnata'

31
(ill)

BRITISH

This is

G minor
D minor

No. 10 in

Lacking most of the continuo part

Only the first three bars of the violin parts
copied, with space to continue. See
note to f.39v above

MUSEUM. ROYAL MUSIC MS. 2O.H.8

much the fullest of the three volumes of fair copies

40-4X25-2 cm.

It contains, at

one by Blow, with strings) and,

duets and secular cantatas. 1

the front, verse anthems

at the back,

welcome

(all,

it

measures

except the

songs, odes, songs,

Purcell indexed only the anthems. His index includes two associated
with the last days of King Charles n, 'I will give thanks unto the Lord' and

We

1
use the now accepted term 'cantata' for its convenience and to
avoid confusion, although we are well aware that Purcell himself did not
use it and that the works in question are not really comparable with

contemporary

cantatas.

113
Appendix
'O Lord, grant the King a long life', which he did not copy, presumably
because he was too busy composing the next anthem in this book,
'My
is
inditing', for the coronation of King James II; he did not list
and the three succeeding anthems in his index. (See Plate IV.)
These last three anthems, much of the third anthem, and the last three

heart
this

works

at the reverse

end of the volume are in the hand of an amanuensis,

who was

possibly PurcelTs brother Daniel. The greater part of the

at the reverse end is in a third hand. At one or two other
item
previous
places the hand alters slightly but not enough to suggest that it is not still

numbered the works at the reverse end, and he also

added subsidiary numbers, which apparently refer to the number of
sections making up a work. He also marked certain works at either end
PurcelTs. Purcell

with a

of the

cross,

precise significance

of which we cannot be

sure.

CONTENTS
Front end

Title

SCORE

'A

on one of the

fly-leaves:

Booke/Containing Severall Anthems

wth

Symphonies'

Subheadings, original
Folios

subheadings, and

Titles

compilers' notes

4 It is a good thing to give thanks

TV O praise God in his holiness
13 v Awake, put on thy strength

'Anthems'

Very
final

largely

non-autograph.

Lacking

chorus

i6v By Blow:
pray for the peace
lyv In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust
22V The Lord is my light
25V I was gkd when they said

28v
32V

My heart

is

fixed

O my soul, and

Praise the Lord,

all that is within

me

37V Rejoice in the Lord alway

39V Why do the heathen?
43
48

Unto

52

They

thee will I cry

will give thanks unto thee,

Lacking inner parts of symphonies

A few bars lacking

O Lord
that

go down

to the sea in

ships

Only a few bars copied; this was abandoned, no doubt, for the same reason
that the next two anthems in the index
were not copied

at

all: 1

space was left

for all the missing music

53V
67
75
81

My heart is inditing
O sing unto the Lord
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
O Lord my God

*one of the Anthems Sung at the Coronation of King James the 2d/

Not autograph1
Not autograph1
Not autograph. 1 Lacking

the last

1 See
introductory paragraph to this manuscript.

few bars

Appendix

Reverse end Title on one of the fly-leaves (in the hand of Edward Purcell,
Edward Purcell who wrote on the fly-leaf at the front end: *E d H.
Purcell/Grandson to the Author of this Book'): 'Score Booke/ Anthems and

father of the

Welcome

songs and other songs

all

by

my father.'
Subheadings, original

Folios

245V Swifter,
23 8

subheadings, and
compilers' notes

Titles

swifter flow

Isis,

What shall be done in behalf of

the

man?

ness at his return

232V The summer's absence unconcerned

How

'A Welcome Song in the Year 1681

For the King'
*A Welcome Song for his Royall High-

we bear

return from
21 1682'

flowery

Cantata

224 We reap all the pleasures

222V Hark how the wild musicians

Cantata

226

pleasant

is

this

from Scotland in the

Yeare 1682'
'A Welcome Song for

New

his

at his

Majesty

Market October the

plain

Cantata. Unfinished.

sing

218

Hark, Damon, hark

217

Above

216

While you

Cantata

the tumults

of a busy

Duet

me

alone had

'(The

state

for

charms

215

Haste, gentle

9th Ode of Horrace imitated)

(A Dialouge betwixt the Poet &

Lydia)'
*(A dialouge between

Charon

Charon

&

Or-

pheus.)'

2I3V Underneath this myrtle shade

2I2V No, to what purpose should I

'(The Epicure)'. Duet

'(The Concealment)'. Song

speak?
21 iv Draw near, you lovers
211
Let the night perish

'(Jobs Curse)'. Sacred

210
209
207

201

Song

Amidst the shades and cool

freshing streams
See where she sits

'(Song)'

From hardy

Song that was perform'd to Prince

th the
George upon his Marriage
Lady Ann.)'
r
'(M Cowley's complaint)'. Cantata. On
199 two staves have been pasted over

Cantata

climes

*(A

In a deep vision's intellectual

scene

I9$v With sick and famish* d eyes

I97V Fly, bold rebellion
190

song

re-

the original
'(Song) out of Mr. Herbert.' Sacred song
"The Welcome Song perform'd to his
Majesty in the Year 1683'

*A Latine Song made upon S t Cecilia,

whoes day is commerated yearly by all

Laudate Cecilliam

Oh! what a scene

i86v Though my mistress be

188

fair

i$5V Soft notes and gently raised

Silvia, thou brighter eye of night

Musitians
Cantata
'a 2 voc.*

made in the year

1683'.

'(A Serandeing Song)'. Cantata.

'(A Seranading Song)'. Duet

Ode

Appendix A
Folios

Subheadings, original
subheadings, and

Titles

compilers' notes

183 v Go,
1 82V

Aminta, gentle swain

From those serene and raptur-

175

ous joys
Cease, anxious world

tell

1 74v

They

173

When

voc.*

Welcome Song perform'd to his

Majesty in the year 1684*
'(Song On a Ground)*
'The Rich Rivall out of r Cowly'. Song
"The

say you're angry

Teucer from

*2

his father

Duet

fled

172

If prayers

I7ov

[I

came,

and

tears

saw, and was undone]

i6pv In some kind dream

169
Awake, and with attention hear
166

for our Late Sov*raign King

Charles the 2d)'. Song
r
'(The Thraldome out of
Cowley)'.
Not copied, but space left for it

'(Sighs

Why are all the Muses mute?

Duet
'(The 34

chapter of Isaiah paraphras'd

by r Cowley)'. Sacred song

'Welcome Song 1685 being the first Song
d

Here's to thee, Dick

Ye tuneful Muses
155
I44V If ever I more riches did desire
This poet sings the Trojan wars
140
Sound the trumpet
139
128
Begin the song

157

127

By

Crucior in hac

Carissimi:

rlamma
I25V Celestial music

performd to King James the 2 .*

'The Words by M^ Cowley'. Duet

'Welcome Song

1686'

Cantata
'(Anacreon's Defeat)'. Song
'Welcome Song 1687'
"The Resurrection; out of Cowley's
Pindaricks'. Sacred song. Only a very
few notes of the beginning copied, with
space left to continue

Duet (anonymous

non-autograph

Ii6v

Now does the glorious day ap- Ode

pear
IO5V Of old
base
90 Arise

for

Queen Mary's

birthday, 1689.

Not autograph 1

when

heroes thought

it

Ode

(Yorkshire Feast Song).

graph

Ode

my Muse

(iv)

here)

r
'A Song that was perform'd at
Maidwells a school master on the
of August 1689 The words by one of
his scholars*. Ode. The greater part is

for

Not

GRESHAM COLLEGE, LONDON.

Not

auto-

Queen Mary's

autograph.

MS.VI.5.6"

birthday, 1690.

Unfinished

This autograph volume consists of songs, duets and dialogues, most of

them from operas or plays. It is not a companion to the preceding three
volumes: it is smaller (21 *2 X 28 cm.), and it dates from the end of Purcell's life

all

the music in

it

that can be dated (and that

1 See
introductory paragraph to this manuscript.
2 <
Barclay Squire, 'An unknown autograph
Antiquary, d, 1911-12, pp. 5-1 ?)

W.

means the greater

of Henry Purcell (Musical

Appendix

between 1690 and 1695. Purcell

part) was composed
it for his own use as a singer or for that of a pupil.

Sources, subheadings and notes

Titles

Folios
I

Now the maids and the men are mak-

Thus

ing of hay
the

may have intended

gloomy world

at first

The Fairy Queen. 'Dialouge', transposed to F

The Fairy Queen. Song, transposed to
Bflat

The Fairy Queen. Song, transposed to

5V Come, all ye songsters

Bflat

6v

May the god of wit inspire

TV Hark, how all things with, one sound

8v Thrice happy lovers may you be

The Fairy Queen. Song, arranged

from a trio
The Fairy Queen. Song.
The Fairy Queen. Song, with slight
variants

looked and saw within the book of

The Indian Emperor. Song

lov

12

Now the night is chas'd away

The Fairy Queen. Song, with

13

Hark, the echoing air

The Fairy Queen. Song, with

14

Turn then

The Fairy Queen. Song,

fate

slight

variants
slight

variants in the bass

thine eyes

arranged

no, poor stifFring heart

l6v In vain 'gainst love I strove
177 Yes, Daphne, in your face I find

from a duet
Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero. Song
Henry II, King of England. Song
The Fairy Queen. Song. The original
has 'Xansi' for 'Daphne* and 'looks'
for *face'

i8v Corinna is divinely fair

ipv Thus to a ripe consenting maid
2ov *Tis Nature's voice

Song
The Old Bachelor. Song.

I5V No,

bright Cecilia:
Cecilia's Day, 1692.

Hail,

posed to

22v Thou

tun'st this

23v The fife and

all

world

the

April

who

till

for

St.

Song, trans-

Ode

for

St.

Song

bright Cecilia: Ode for St.

Cecilia's Day, 1692. Song, trans-

harmony

Hail,

posed to

25

bright Cecilia:
Cecilia's Day, 1692.

Hail,

Ode

now

Celebrate this festival:

Ode for Queen

Mary's birthday, 1693. Song

26v Kindly treat Maria's day

27V Ah cruel nymph, you give
29v Behold the man that with
might
!

34v

I see she flies

36

love and

Celebrate this Festival:

Ode for Queen

Mary's birthday, 1693. Song

despair

gigantic

me
must

37V Come let us leave the town

39v Not all my torments can your pity
4ov Fair Chloe my breast so alarms
43v What can we poor females do?

Song
The Richmond

Woman
Heiress, or
once in the Right. *A Dialouge between a Mad
Woman'

Man & Mad

Aureng-Zebe. Song
'Bell Barr'.

Song
The Fairy Queen. *a 2'

Song
Duet
Song

Appendix
Folios

Sources, and compilers

44v Celia frowns whene'er

46v What a sad
48v

Titles
I

woo

her

notes

The Double Dealer. Song. The original has 'Cynthia' for 'Celia'

fate

is

mine

(first setting)

When first I saw the bright Aurelia's

eyes
5ov Since from

my

dear

Song. Voice part and a few passages

of the bass only

The

the

The

the

Prophetess, or
Dioclesian. Song
Prophetess, or
Dioclesian. Song;

History

of

History of
bass lacks
all but the last ten bars and two
bars to begin the reprise of the

the

second section
5 iv

Sawney

is

52v Leave these

lad

bonny

useless arts in loving

Song
Epsom

Wells. Song, arranged

from a

duet

53v

I sigh*d

and own'd

my

55v There's not a swain

56v Strike the viol

on

love
the plain

The Fatal Marriage, or the Innocent

Adultery. Song
Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. Song

Come ye sons of art away: Ode for

Queen Mary's birthday, 1694, Song

57V Olinda in the shades unseen

58v I fain would be free

Song
Song.

Voice part

only (no

bass

known)
5pv

[I

burn,

The Comical History of Don Quixote,

part ii. The beginning of the words
only (no music by Purcell known).
A setting by John Eccles of this text

burn]

appears in

may

6ov

Ah how sweet it is to
I

love

66v Luanda is bewitching

Abdelazer,

6pv

with grief

Ah what pains, what racking

!

thoughts

7OV

*Tis vain to fly like

wounded deer

Purcell

either only to

History of Don Quixote,

part i. Song. Voice part and a few
notes of the bass only

The Comical

6yv Whilst

Quixote.

copy this song (which, as sung by

Mrs. Bracegirdle, inspired his own
'Whilst I with grief see note to
677 below) or to compose a
setting of his own
Tyrannic Lovey or the Royal Martyr.
Song. Voice part only

6iv Let the dreadful engines

fair

Don

have intended

or the Moor's Revenge.

Song. Voice part only
The Spanish Friar, or the Double
Discovery. Song. Unfinished, with
Bracespace to continue. *On Mrs.

the
girdle Singing (I Burn &c) in
play of Don Quixote.'
Song. Voice part only (no bass
known). Unfinished, with space
to continue
Song. Not Henry PurcelFs autoPurcell
graph. Attributed to Daniel
in
Thesaurus Musicus (London,

118

Appendix

A
9

72V

Sources,

Titles

Folios

What

ungrateful devil

makes you

come?

and compilers notes

Song. Not Henry PurcelTs autograph the handwriting is the same

that of the previous song.
as
Attributed to Daniel Purcell in
;

Gentleman's Journal, 1693

Reverse end (upside down)
77v Since, Chloris, the

power of your

charms

Song. Voice part and first note of the

bass
only (no complete copy
known). This setting is probably
not by Purcell. It is not in his hand ;
the hand

(v)

different

is

from

that

of

70-73

tT.

MISCELLANEOUS MANUSCRIPTS

Behold now,
Lord

Genres and compilers'

Sources

Titles

praise

the

notes

B.M. Add. MS. 30932,

121 (the first system of
the opening symphony

on a pasted-on sHp,
(see under 'Sonata'

Service in

121*

below))

Bodleian MS.Mus.a. i (the

Benedicite (from the

Morning

Verse anthem with strings

flat)

Service.

For one passage

p. 2 there are two

versions. For a note on

on

sole item)

the reverse side of the

second version see un-

der Monteverdi in Section II

Blessed are they that fear

the Lord

B.MAdd. MS.3093i,6i

Verse anthem with strings

The Fairy Queen

Royal Academy MS.i

Opera

Only

(the sole item)

a small part of this score

is

autograph, as follows:
3 (partly autograph)

of the Second Music,

2b Rondeau, 4
6 First Act Tune, 20
26 Third Act Tune, f.54v
2a

First part

See my many-colour* d fields, 77 (partly autograph)

Fourth Act Tune, f.Siv
Sure the dull god of marriage, 97 (partly autograph)
49
51
Chaconne, i65v (probably autograph)
Ode for St. Cecilia's Day,
Bodleian MS.Mus.c.26,
Hail, bright Cecilia
22
1692
35
38

Very largely autograph;

from half-way through
it

67 to the end (f.6"9v)

is in the hands of

two
I

was glad

Barber MS.sooi,

p.

292

copyists

Verse Anthem, with

Strings

Appendix
Titles

A
Genres, and compilers'

Sources

notes

In the midst of

life (first

B.M.Add.MS.3093i,

f.8i

Funeral sentences

version)

O Lord,

In thee,

do

put

my trust

10

Let mine eyes run

with

My

Verse anthem with strings

Bodleian MS.Mus.c.26,

down

Verse anthem

Bodleian MS.Mus.c.26,

tears

beloved spake

(first

Second versions of two

passages

are

over the

first

inserted
versions

Verse anthem with strings

B.M.Add.MS.30932,
87

version)
heart is fixed

My
O give thanks

Barber MS. 5001, p. 308

Fitrwilliam MS. 152
(32

F 23),

Verse anthem with strings

Verse anthem

An

p. 56

dated

score,

organ,

The

'1693'.

last

page

not autograph
Feast
(Yorkshire

(p. 61) is

Of old when

Ode

B.M.MS. Egerton 2596

heroes

(the sole item)

Song)

Out of the deep

B.M.Add.MS.3093i, 67
Plung'd in the confines of Barber MS.500I, p. 328
despair
Sonata for three violins

and continue

Verse anthem

Hymn

B.M.Add.MS.30932,

Sonata

f.J2i*v

Three

lines of the begin-

ning

of the

violin

second

(marked
already on the
part

'flute')

reverse side of the slip

used for the

first

system

of 'Behold now, praise

the Lord (set above),
1

probably in PurcelTs
hand. In the Purcell
edition,

Society

XHIa

p. xi, it
third too

The Lord is my light

Thou knowest, Lord,

the

vol.

(London, 1921),
is

printed a

Barber MS-500I, p. 276

low 1
Verse anthem with

B.M.Add.MS.3093i,83

Funeral sentences

B.M.Add.MS.30934,

Ode

strings

secrets of our hearts (first

setting, first version)

Who

can from joy re-

79

frain?

Who

hath believed our

B.M.Add.MS.30932,

94

the

Duke of

Gloucester's

birthday,

for

1695
Verse anthem

report?
1

Also c

G. E. P. Arkwright's query

1909-10, p. 128.

in

Musical Antiquary,

I,

120

Appendix
II.

WORKS NOT BY PURCELL BUT IN

Fitzwilliam

Holy, holy

HAND 1

HIS

Genres.,

Sources

Titles

Composers

Anon

MS. 152

F 23), p. 54
B.M.Add.MS.30932,

Service.

and compilers'
notes

An

organ score

(32

the waters
of Babylon

By

Humfrey

Verse anthem.
apted

Cruda Amarilli BodleianMS.Mus.a.i,

p.2

has been

this

anthem but

probably not so.

Madrigal. For the second
of a short
version
passage in his *Benethis

Monteverdi

It

that Purcell ad-

said

52

is

dicite'

(from the Morn-

ing Service in

B flat) (see

Section I (v)) Purcell

used the blank side of
a leaf containing on the
other side the begin-

ning of bis transcription of this madrigal

from Monteverdi's *J7
auinto libro demadrigali*

(Venice, 1605).

What

a slightly
altered version of the
first few bars of the top
four voices, with the

remains

first

III.

This

is

a list

is

two words only2

SUPPOSITITIOUS AUTOGRAPHS

of manuscripts which have been described in authoritative

as
wholly or partly autograph, concerning whose authenrefutation appears hitherto to have been published. In our
opinion they are certainly not autographs.

printed sources
ticity

no

Works

Sources

B.M.Add.MS.5337,

27

B.M.Add.MS. 17784
B.M.Add.MS.33240,

The Music in Bonduca

Bass parts of anthems

Bodleian MS.Mus.c.27*

Basso continue part of 'Welcome to

(Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, 1683)8

Wno can from joy refrain? (Ode

all

the pleasures*

for the

Duke of

Gloucester's birthday, 1695)

1

The works

listed

2 cf. Franklin

here are those not listed in Section

Zimmerman,

1958, pp. 368-9) and Plate

8

'Purcell

and Monteverdi' (Musical Times, July

II.

A. Hughes-Hughes, having stated in 'Henry PurceU's Handwriting* (Musical

Times, 1896, p. 81) that this is not an autograph, labelled it 'Autograph* in the
Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, E (London, 1908), p. 211.

Appendix

Sources

Bodleian MS.Mus.c.27,
Bodleian MS.Mus.c.28,

(32

MS. 152

Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.,

MS.ML96.P.89

this

myrtle shade (The Epicure)

manuscript containing the 12 Sonatas of III parts

(London, 1683)
Te Deum and Jubilate in D, and song, "When first
Dorinda's piercing eyes

Sibley

IV.

songs in Don Quixote

does the glorious day appear (Ode for Queen
Mary's birthday, 1689)
Organ score of Gloria in G (anonymous here, but

by O. Gibbons)
Song, Underneath

23), p. 55

Stanford,

The

Now

f.?8

Fitzwilliam

121
Works

MS.i

NON-AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT SOURCES OF MAJOR

WORKS BY PURCELL

RELIABLE

Works

Sources

Dido and Aeneas 1

The Fairy Queen

Tenbury MS. 1266

Royal Academy MS.i
Section I

(partly

autograph

see

(v))

The Indian Queen

B.M. Add.MSS.3 1449, 31453, f. 39, and 31455
King Arthur
Royal Academy MS. 3
The Prophetess, or the History of Tenbury MS.I266; B.M.Add.MS.31455
Dioclesian

The Tempest,

or the Enchanted

Tenbury MS. 1266

Island

Morning and Evening

Service in

Fitzwilliam

MS.ny

(30

10), p.

23irev

flat

Te Deum and Jubilate in

IHP

York Minster

London, MS. 1.4.19

Gresham College, London, MS.VL4.ip

10 Sonatas of IV parts

(c

Section HI);

Library MS.M.9.S.
Conservatoire Royale de Musique, Brussels,
MS.V.I4.98I (said to have been copied
from the autograph)
B.M. Royal Music MS.20.h.9, 98 v; a MS.
in Sibley (cf. Section HI); Gresham College,

12 Sonatas of III parts

1 See
Appendix
Aeneas in Tokyo.

Stanford,

MS.i

for recent information about the manuscript of Dido and

[Editor.]

Appendix

FURTHER SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTHCENTURY EVIDENCE BEARING ON THE

PERFORMANCE OF PURCELL'S WORKS
Compiled by ROBERT DONINGTON
THE quotations printed below make interesting reading for the light
they throw on the interpretation of PurcelTs music, not as we see it
today, but as its own contemporaries and near-contemporaries would
it. They contain, in fact, some of the evidence on which the
conclusions in Chapter 8 are based. Such evidence is not always available from sources as near in time and place as we could wish, but none

have seen

of the following is far distant, and taken together we believe

a picture as authentic as it is in some ways unexpected.

it

builds

up

GENERAL
[A composer must needs] be transported with some Musical fury; so
knoweth what he doth, nor can presently give a

that himself scarcely

reason of his doing.

Charles Butler, Principles ofMusick (London, 1636), p. 92.

But when
Chorus came

Ground

shake,

that Vast-Conchording-Unity
(as

of the whole Congregationaleven so, as it made the very

may say) Thundering in,

under us; (Oh the unutterable ravishing Soul's delight!)

In the which I was so transported, and u>rapt up into High Contemplations,

that there was no room left in
whole Man, viz. Body, Soul and Spirit,

my

for any thing

below Divine and Heavenly Raptures

Thomas Mace,

Mustek' s

Monument (London,

1676), p. 19.

ACCIDENTALS

As

... [except in the key signature] it serves only for that

[7
Note before which it is placed.
[The] j^ takes away a
Semitone from the sound of the Note before which it is set, to make it
more grave oxjlat: [the] jf doth add a Semitone to the Note to make it
more acute or sharp
[except in the key-signature] it serves only for
that particular Note before which it is applied.
for the

particular

Christopher Simpson, Compendium (London, 1665), ed. of 1732, p.

5.

Appendix
ORNAMENTAL EMBELLISHMENTS

of music can be

piece

beautiful,

125

and please not, for want of being

performed with, the necessary embellishments, of which embellishments

the most part are not marked on the
paper, whether because in fact

they
cannot be marked for lack of symbols for the purpose, or whether it has
been considered that too many marks encumber and take away the

of a melody, and would bring a kind of confusion.

Benigne de BaciUy, UArt deBien Chanter (Paris, 1668), p. 135.

clearness

some of the Music

a Place.

let

when

practising a Song set by Mr.

to grace and run a Division in such
him alone, said Mr. Purcell; he will grace it more naturally

[The boy singer Jemmy Bowen]

Purcell,

told

him

than you or I can teach him.*

Anthony Aston, Brief Supplement to

Lowe in his
It is

the hardest task that can be to pen the

the sense of 'made with

and in

Colley Cibber,Esq. (1748), reported by R. W.

n (London, 1889), p. 312.

ed. of Gibber's Apology,

print,

art']

manner of

Gracing an upper part.

It hath

but with Woefull Effect ... the Spirit of that

municable by wrighting.
Roger North, B.M. Add. MS.

32533,

very

early

artificial [in

bin attempted,
art

is

eighteenth

Incom-

century,

f.io6v.

TEMPO AND RUBATO

There being nothing more
time,

which

difficult in Musick then playing of true

therefore necessary to be observ'd by all practitioners, of
is disthere are two sorts, Common time and Triple time,

'tis

&

this ( or this $ mark, the first is a very slow movetinguish'd by this

each
a
next
little
the
ment,
faster, and die last a brisk and airry time,
of them has allways to the length of one Semibrief in a barr, which is to

&

be held in playing as long as you can moderately tell four. .

and
a
Triple time consists of either three or six Crochets in barr,
.

be

known by

this i

this 3d, this 3

or this I marke, to the

first

is

there

to
is

play'd very slow, the second

has three Crochets in a barr, and they are to be play'd slow, the third has
the same as the former but is play'd faster, the last has six Crochets
is
in a barr
commonly to brisk tunes as Jiggs and Paspys.
three Minurns in a barr, and

is

commonly

&

Preface (not actually known to be PurcelTs) in his posthumous Choice Collection

for the Harpsichord (London, 1696).
1
A. Westrup in his Parcel!
Professor.
is cited
This

quotation

(London, 193?), p- ?6.

by

J.

124

Appendix

of three Semibreves to a Measure, each

Semibreve being shorter than a Minim in Common Time.
The more common Tripla, is three Minims to a Measure, each
Minim about the length of a Crochet in Common Time.
Sometimes a Tripla

consists

Christopher Simpson, Compendium (London, 1665), pp.

Time

taken

now

slowly,

now

swiftly,

i3fF.

and even held in the

air,

according to the expression of the music, or the sense of the words.

The closes, though written quick, are to be performed much drawn
out; as the end of the section or close approaches, the

tempo should be

increasingly held back.

Girolamo Frescobaldi, Toccatas (Rome, 1614), Preface,

Adagio and Grave

I.

import nothing but a very slow movement:

by it Sel a middle movement: Allegro,

Presto Largo, Poco Largo or Largo

and

Vivace, a

Henry

brisk, swift

very

Purcell, Sonatas of III parts

and

fast

movement.

(London, 1683), Preface.

Time is a various and undetermined thing

. . .

[there are] grave, adagio,

and sometimes prestissimo. The first

expresses the slowest Movement, and the rest gradually quicker; but
largo, vivace,

allegro,

indeed they leave

Quantity

it

presto,

altogether to Practice to determine the precise

are swifter in triple than in common time . .

Movements

the allegro of one species of triple is a quicker

another, so very uncertain these things are.
Alexander Malcolm,

An

allegro

Treatise

Movement than

that

of

of Mustek (Edinburgh, 1731), p. 394.

ought never to exceed a controlled and reasonable

movement.
Joachim Quantz, Essay (Berlin, 1752), XII, n.
[In

slow movements, avoid] the error of a sluggish, dragging per-

formance.
C. P.

E. Bach, Essay (Berlin, 1753), transL

RHYTHM: DOTTED
It is

Mitchell (London, 1949), p. 152.

NOTES, ETC.

not possible to determine exactly the time of the

which follows the

short nates

little

note

dot.

Joachim Quantz, Essay

The

W.

(Berlin, 1752),

XI, 21.

which follow dots

are always

written text indicates.

C. P. E. Bach, Essay (Berlin, 1753), p. 113.

made

shorter than the

Appendix

125

Although the values of the Treble do not seem to

Bass,

it is

fit

with those of the

customary to write thus.

Francois Couperin, Pieces de Clavecin, Bk.

(Paris, 1717),

note to loth Ordre.

PHRASING AND ARTICULATION

On

the last note of . . passages . . you must

pause, even if this note
a quaver or a semiquaver ... for such a
pause avoids confusion between
one phrase and another.
.

is

Girolamo Frescobaldi,

Toccatas

In proper places

(Rome, 1614), Preface,

make

a kind

4.

of Cessation, or standing

still,

sometimes Longer, and sometimes Shorter, according to the Nature, or

of the Musick.
requiring
.

Thomas Mace,

Musick''s

Monument (London,

1676), p. 109.

You must not join notes which should be detached, nor detach notes
which should be joined. The notes should not sound as if they were stuck
together with glue. On wind instruments the tongue should give
Ideas which belong
articulation, on stringed instruments the bow.
.

together should not be separated, but when their sense is completed they
should be made separate, whether a pause is shown or not.

JoacHm Quantz, Essay (Berlin,

,

1752),

X,

10.

your Manner of Bowing you lay a particular Stress on the Note

Beginning of every Bar, so as to render it predominant over the
you alter and spoil the true Air of the Piece.

If by
at the
rest,

Francesco Geminiani, Art of Playing on the Violin (London 1740), ed. of 1751,
p. 9.

TEXTURE AND DYNAMICS

of the composition an elegant fugal subject occurs,
and the
must be produced with a clearer and more decisive voice
to be
...
are
the
same
if
voices,
fugal subject,
they begin
succeeding
If in the beginning

this

enunciated in the same way: this

renewed fugal

is

to be observed in all the voices,

entries occur, so that the coherence

when

and arrangement of all

the fugal entries can be heard.

Hermann Finck,

Practica

Entries should

be emphasized a

Musica (Wittenberg, 1556), Lib. V, p.

hearer.
perceived by the
Ludovico Zacconi, Prattica

di

little

7.

so as to be instantly and clearly

Musica (Rome, 1592), LXVI,

p. 59.

126
Keep

Appendix
still

an equal Sound [except in a point of imitation].

Charles Butler, Principles ofMusick (London, 1636), p. 98.

Always keep the advantage of being able to produce, at need, after the
For to perform a
and after the piano a pianissimo.

forte a fortissimo,

piece in one uniform manner and with a melody always equal, in

short to keep, so to speak, always the same colour: that becomes tedious.

whole

Increase or abate the tone as required.

Joachim Quantz, Essay

(Berlin, 1752), pp.

92 and 108.

Dissonances are generally played more loudly and consonances more

softly, because the former stimulate and exacerbate the emotions, while
the latter calm them.
C. P. E. Bach, Essay (Berlin, 1753),

I,

3.

INSTRUMENTAL STYLE AND TEXTURE

A Handsom-Smooth-Sweet-Smart-Clear

Stroke; or else Play not at

all.

Thomas Mace,
[Vibrato]

Mustek's

Monument (London,

1676), p. 248.

imitates a certain sweet agitation

of the Voice on

[instru-

is
why one uses it in all circumstances when the
mental] Sounds; that
length of the Note allows of it; and it must last as long as the Note.

Jean Rousseau, Traiti de

la Viole (Paris, 1687), p. 100.

Appendix

A NOTE

ON THE NANKI COLLECTION

PURCELL'S WORKS

OF

IMOGEN HOLST
WHEN

the W. H. Cummings library was sold at Sotheby's in

a
'remainder' of over four hundred items was bought by
1917,
the late Marquis Tokugawa and sent to Tokyo to form part
of the Nanki Library. The 'Catalogue of the W. H. Cummings

Collection in the

Nanki Music

in 1925, mentions the following

Library', published in
Purcell:

12 Sonatas of III parts, for 2 violins

two

Tokyo

works by

and

printed) folio, 5 vols. Playford

bass, (3 MSS. and

and Carr, London,

1683.

Ten sonatas

An

in four parts, for

2 violins and bass, bass parts, 1693.

Duke of

ode performed upon the

Gloucester's birthday, 1695.

(Copies from composer's own MS. by V. Novello and

S.

Wesley.) obi. 8vo.

Dido and Aeneas,

folio, Saec.

XVIII.

Indian Queen. (Full score) obi. folio.

Other references to Purcell in the catalogue include:

Purcell, Birds

(sic)

Tallis,

&c.

Church Services
Early manuscript scores (containing 21 pieces
folio. Saec.

Purcell,

XVm

Blow, Croft and

by 6 composers)

others.

A collection of music

compositions (written by different

hands) folio.
Purcell,

Blow,

Tallis, dec.

Anthems*
(containing 29 pieces

by

autograph of Dr. Blow.)

composers in full-score with

folio. Saec.

128

Appendix

The Dido and Aeneas

is

the copy

C
which Cummings mentions

in the preface to his edition of the opera, published by the

Purcell Society in 1889. In this preface he also mentions 'an old
set of instrumental and vocal parts which had been used in per-

formance'. These he collated with his

own manuscript score and

the Ouseley MS. (now Tenbury 1266). Unfortunately he left

no record in his Purcell Society edition of where his own manu-

had differed from the Tenbury MS. or from the

with the result that since 1917 no other editor has
parts,
been able to find out what the Cummings MS. contained.
When Edward J. Dent prepared his edition of the work for
the Oxford University Press in 1925 he made a fresh collation
script score

set

of

of the available manuscripts. He was able to see the set of parts,

which he refers to as representing the concert version printed
by the Musical Antiquarian Society in 1841. But he was not
able to see the Cummings score; he was not even aware that it
was in Japan.
This started the legend of the lost' manuscript oDido. Other
legends have grown during the last few years. One of the most
recent was the legend that the score was in the possession of
an American collector, that it had been locked up in a cellar
in Baltimore and that all enquirers were turned away without
being allowed to see it. By the beginning of 1958 this particular
legend had become alarmingly persistent, so I wrote to Professor
Anthony Lewis, to ask if there were any truth in it. He replied:
'It would be an understatement to
say that the position is oband he advised me to write to Dr. J. M. Coopersmith
of the Library of Congress in Washington. Dr. Coopersmith
wrote that in 1956 he had been asked to expertize a portion of the
scure';

Nanki Library which had been offered for sale in America, but that,
found no Purcell manuscript in the collection.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Britten was revising his edition of the
opera for publication, and was trying to make up his mind

to his regret, he

MS. When I told

Cummings MS. he asked

about several inconsistencies in the Tenbury

him of the rumours about

his friend

the

'lost'

Mr. Reginald Close,

who

had been

British Council

representative in
reliable

Tokyo

Appendix

for

years, if

many

information about the score.

129

By

he could get any

that time the galley

proofs of this book had been corrected and I was beginning to

wonder if even the unfailing patience of the Oxford University

would allow me to take much longer over the search.

then an exciting letter arrived from Miss
Seymour Whinyates, Director of the Music Department of the British Council,
Press

And

W. R. McAlpine, Deputy Director of the

Tokyo, with the help of Mr. Keiser Sakka
and Miss Dorothy Britton, had had an interview with Mr.
Kyuhei Oki, the present owner of the Dido manuscript, and that
Mr. Oki was most generously allowing Mr. Britten to see a
microfilm of the score.
The future of the manuscript is still uncertain, but further
letters from Tokyo have brought the welcome news that Mr.
Oki does not intend to let it go out of his hands unless he is
sure that it will be available for research. This statement is in
itself a valuable contribution to musicology, and will bring
Mr. Oki the gratitude of all lovers of PurcelTs music. Mr. Oki
has also suggested that it may be possible to arrange a loan
exhibition of the manuscript in England during 1959, as part
of the celebration of PurcelTs tercentenary.
The Oki MS. contains the same amount of music as the
Tenbury MS. The missing end of Act II (see p. 25) is not, alas,
included. The first nine pages are in a kter hand than the rest
of the manuscript: they date from the second rialf of the nineteenth century, and contain editor's marks such as 'sf, pp, cres,
telling us that

Mr.

British Council in

&c. In these pages Belinda is Anna, as in

the Musical Antiquarian edition of 1841; she sings an octave

Allegretto Grazioso',

lower, in the alto clef. Then, on page 10, the writing changes
to early nineteenth century (approximately 1800 to 1810), and
remains the same for the rest of the work. Belinda becomes her
true

the
It

self,

and

all

main

essentials in the

work

are the same as in

Tenbury MS.
seems possible that both the Tenbury

MS. were

copied, at different times

and in

MS. and

the

different hands,

OH
from

ij o
the same

earlier

Appendix C
manuscript of which no

traces

have

so far

been

discovered. Several obvious mistakes in copying are identical

in the Tenbury and the Oki manuscripts, though on the whole

the

Oki MS.

is

the

more

accurate of the

two in ordinary

details

of copying where there can be no question of any alternative

interpretation.

In the Oki
dec.

MS. time signatures are modernized,

becoming |,

minor
Key signatures are modernized: three flats for
four for F minor, compared with Tenbury's two and three.

and
Double bars are added

at the

end of each short

dicting the continuity of the

section, contra-

Tenbury MS. Accidentals

are

sometimes, but not always, modernized. For instance, the second

half of the third bar of the Ground in 'Oft she visits' has the
written natural and

flat

that

were not considered necessary in

Oki

copyist

differ considerably in their

melodic

the Tenbury MS. Dynamics are not altered: the

keeps to PurcelTs 'soft' and loud'.

Many of the final cadences

interpretation from the written graces of Tenbury. In 'Fear no

danger', the end of the line 'The Hero loves as well as you' is

given three crotchets in the last bar but one instead of the familiar

Oki are 'plainer'

and 'Carthage flames to-

crotchet and minim. Elsewhere, the cadences in

than in Tenbury:

'this

open

air'

morrow'

are written as straightforward crotchets.

of the most illuminating results of comparing the

One

two

finding that they agree in several of the 'awkmanuscripts

ward' passages that editors have fought shy of. Near the end
of 'To the hills and the vales', at 'the triumphs of love and of
is

beauty', both manuscripts

have a

falling

augmented fourth in

the soprano, involving consecutive sevenths with the bass.

Neither Cummings nor Dent found the cadence acceptable:

each of them smoothed

This

is

one of many

it

out and offered

details in

the

his

own alternative.

Oki MS. which may bring

us nearer to what Purcell intended. 1

1

Mr. Britten wishes to acknowledge his gratitude to Mr. Oki for

of information about his manu-

his kindness in allowing these details

script to

be given in

this

book.

INDEX
Abdelazar, 99
Abell, John,

Blagrave, Richard, 57; Thomas,

57, 62

58

56/1,

accidentals, 77-79, 122, 130

Blessed Virgins Expostulation, The,

Ads

5,12
Blow, John,

and Galatea

(Eccles),

i8n

Agazzari, Agostino, 79
Albion andAlbanius, 31
Allegro,

L\

Alleluia,

Anatomist, The, 22, 33

Annals of Opera, 17
Arkwright, G. E, P., io8w, n$n
Arne, Thomas, 43
Arnold, F. T., 84/2
Art of Accompaniment from a
8411

Art de Bien Chanter, L\ 123

Art ofPlaying on the Violin, The, 97,
98, 125
Arundell, Dennis, 92^
Aston, Anthony, 123
Auden, W. H., 4

Bach, C. P. E., 124, 126; J. C.,43;

5,

42, 52, 75, 81, 94

Institute

of Fine

Arts,

University of Birmingham,
106, 118, 119
Batten, Adrian, 109
Bellini, 93
Bergmann, Walter, 13
Betterton, Thomas, 16, 19, 20, 30

Birmingham

Bowen, Jemmy,

123

Bowman, John, 59
Boyce, William,

now

Boyden, David D., $6n

Bracegirdle, Mrs., 33, 117
British Council, The, 128, 129
British Museum, 106, 107, 110-15,
119, 120, 121
Britten, Benjamin, 25, 26, 28, 34,
128, 129, 130

Britton, Dorothy, 129

Royale de
Musique, 121
Brutus of Alba (i) (Tate), 15, 31;
(2) Powell and Verbruggen,
3i

de, 123

Ballad Opera, 45

Barber

Boucher, Josias, 56^, 58

Brussels, Conservatoire

Ayresfor the Theatre, in

JS.,
y, Benigne

60, 62,

127
Bodleian Library, Oxford, 106,
118, 119, 120

Thorough-Bass, The,

3, 36, 37, 58,

68, 69, 71, 108, 109, 112, 113,

University, see Bar-

ber
Birthday Odes, 45, 46, 58, 59,

Burnaby, William, 21
Burney, Charles, 80
Butler, Charles, 122, 126

Byrd, 44, 52, 109, 127

Carissimi, 115

Carse,

Adam,

Carter,
Cecilian

65

Andrew, 63
Odes, see

Cecilia s

Celemene, 12

Day

Odes for

St.

Index

132
Chapel Royal, 53-66, 68

Cheque-Book,

Old Cheque-

see

Book
Child, "William, 56*, 57, 58, 62, 109
Choice Collection of Lessons for the
Harpsichord or Spinet, A, 68,
81, 123
Christ Church, Oxford, 54
Services,

127

Cibber, Colley, 123

Cinthia andEndimion, 31
clefs, 104,

105

Close, Reginald, 128

coloratura, 10, 44, 46

Commedia

3, 5, 8,

Dolmetsch, Nathalie, 95n

Quixote, 59
Dorset Garden Theatre, 1 8, 19, 31,
32
dotted notes, 88-92, 124
Dowland, I, 2, 46

Don

Child, Harold, 18

Church

Divine Hymns,

Division Violist, The, 80, 95

Downes, John, 33
Drury Lane, Theatre Royal,

19,

20, 31, 32, 34

Dryden, 4, 6, 31, 37
Duke's Men, The, 18
D'Urfey, Thomas, 16, 17, 31
dynamics, 94, 95, 125, 130

delVArte, 31

Comparison Between the French and

Italian Music, 75
Comparison Between the Two Stages,

Eastman School of Music Library,

Rochester, N.Y., 106, 121
Ebner, Wolfgang, 79

A, 19, 20
Compendium of Mustek, A, loin,

Eccles,

122, 124
Congreve, William, 19, 32
Coopersmith, J. M., 128

Eliot, T. S., 46-50

Empress of Morocco, The, 22

CorelH, Arcangelo, 76, 80

couler,

92

Country dances, 98-102

Couperin, Francois, 125
Crespion, Stephen, 56^, 62
Croft, William, 127

Cummings,W.H.,

14, 15, 17, 127,

128

96

Dialogues, 12

Dido and Aeneas,

English Dancing Master, The, 98

English Opera Group, The, 25

Essay (C. P. E. Bach), 124, 126;
(Joachim Quantz), 124-6

Evelyn, John, 58, 61, 62

Evening Hymn, 10
Fairest Isle,

Fairy Queen, The,

36, 45, 50

Daily Courant, 33
Damascene, Alexander, 58
D'Avenant, "William, 35
Dennis, John, 20
Dent, Edward]., 18, 25, 128
Attache,

John, 20, 33, 117

Edmunds, Jonathan, in

2, 3, 4, 8, 14-34,

35-41, 46, 50, 75, 121, 127-30

Diodesian, 4, 36, 45, 98

Fantasias,

i, 4, 18, 19, 34,

94

Fatal Hour, The,

Faure, Gabriel, 7
'Fear no danger', 2, 17, 130
figuring, 7, 9, 78, 79, 84
Finger, Godfrey, 33
Fink, Hermann, 125
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,
106, 107-10, 119, 120, 121

Folk-song, English, 43

Index
Foundations ofEnglish Opera, 18, 25
Frescobaldi, 71, 87, 124, 125

From

rosy boivers, 4, 5

Fuller-Maitland, J. A., io8n

'Hole in the Wall, The', 99

Hoist, Gustav, 35
*How blest are shepherds',

Howell, John, 59
Hughes-Hughes, A.,

Galliard, I

10

I03,

108,

I20/Z

Humfrey, Pelham,

Galliard, J. E., 75^, 95*1

Gay, John, 43
Geminiani, Francesco, 97, 125
Gentleman s Journal, 60, 61, 118

Gibbons,

3,

69;
lando, 44, 46, 109, 121

Christopher,

Or-

Gildon, Charles, 17, 19, 20-23, 3*

Giles, Nathaniel, 109

Gluck, 4
Golden Sonata, The, 8
Goodgroome, Theodore, 57; John
(i), 57; John (2), 57

love's sickness to

fly,

12

I spy Celia, 12
I take no pleasure, 2

If love's a sweet passion, I

If music be the food of love,
3, 76,

Improvisation,

from figured

77

bass, 7, 9,

84

of instrumental variations, 80
of organ solos, 68
inequality, 91-92
Island Princess, The, 34

Graces, 60, 81, 123, 130

Gresham College, London,

105,

106, 115-18, 121

Grove, The, 32
Grove's Dictionary of Music (5th

Hall, bright Cecilia,

i, 2, 9,

120

Indian Queen, The, 26, 31, 45, 127

Gostling, John, 59, 63

Grabu, Louis, 31

edition, 1954), 5<5,

I attempt from

57, 109,

8i,

60

Jew of Venice,

The, 21

Job's Curse, 4, 5, 7,
Jones, Geraint, 26

Jonson, Ben, 20

Judgment of Paris, The, 32

Key

signatures, 104, 130

King Arthur,

4, 9, 18, 19, 36, 45,

59

Hamlet, 47-50

Kircher, Athanasius, 86

3, 13, 43, 45, 52

Harding, James, 57; John, 57
Hark the echoing air, 10

Lamentation on the Death of Henry

Purcell, 31

Hark how the mid musicians sing, 92,

Langer, Suzanne, 47, 48

Handel,

Lansdowne,

93

Harmonia

Hart, James, 58
Heinichen,J. D., 86
'Here the deities approve', 3
Heritage of Music, The, 35
Heywood, Thomas, 57, 63

Hodgson, Mrs.,

33,

Holder, William, 62

George

Granville

Lord, 21

Sacra, 8

34

Laugier, Abbe\ 86

Lenton, John, 56*1, 58

'Let sullen Discord smile*, 12
Leveridge, Mr,, 34
Lewis, Anthony, 91*1, 128

Library of Congress, Washington,

121, 128

Index

134
'Lilliburlero',

44

Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, 16-

32-34
Tennis Court, 19

19, 21-24, 30,

Lisle's

Locke, Matthew, 22, 57, 69, 95,

musicafcta, 77-79
Musical Antiquarian Society, 14,
128

109

Loewenberg, Alfred, 17
London Gazette, 32
Lord, what is man,

Musical Antiquary, io8n, 119/2

Musical Quarterly, 75/2, 95^, 96/2

Louis XIV, 45, 57

lourer, 92,

Mozart, 4, 7, 46
Mozart, Leopold, 97
Mundy, "William, 109
Music and Letters, non
Music for a While, 10

93

Musical Times, 103 , io8, I2on

Musick's Monument, 87, 122, 125,
126

Love Betray' d, 21
Love for Love, 19
Loves of Mars and Venus, The, 33
Love's Victim, 20
Lowe, Edward, 54, 60
Lowe, R. W., 123

Nanki Music Library, 14, 12in, 127

Niedt, F. E., 79

Lully, Jean Baptiste, 45

North, Roger, 95, 123

My Beloved spake,

44

notes inegales, see inequality

McAlpine, W. R., 129

Mace, Thomas, 87, 89, 97, 122,

O
O

125, 126

McLean, Hugh,

Mad Bess,

5,

67, 71

is

Day, 45, 58,

Old Cheque-Book, 53, 54, 62

Oldmixon, John, 30, 32

57;

Al-

Measure for Measure, 16-18, 20-22,

26, 30-33

Merchant of Venice, The 9 21

Mermaid

Theatre, 26
Midsummer Night's Dream, A, 50

Olinda, 2

On

the

brow of Richmond Hill, 10

Orchestra in the

XVIIIth Century,

The, 65

Ornamentation, 70, 78-81, 84, 123

Oroonoko, 12

Orpheus Britannicus, 8, 12
Orpheus and Euridice (masque), 22
Ouseley, Rev. Sir Frederick, 14, 128
Pate, Mr., 34, 61

Milton, 3
Mitchell,

St. Cecilia's

Oki, Kyuhei, 129, 130

for the woman made, 7, 10

H., loSn

Alphonso (i),
phonso (2), 57, 59
Masque, 4, 17, 18, 21

44

59,60

Mann, A.
Marsh,

Mistress mine,
Solitude,

Odes for

II

Magic Flute, The, 4

MaHlant, Pierre, 85
Malcolm, Alexander, 124
Man of Mode, The, 22

Man

Novello, Vincent, 52

W., 124

Pavan,

Monteverdi, 42, 104, 105, II 8, 120

Pears, Peter,

Monthly Musical Record, io$n

Motteux, P. A., 60

Pepys, Samuel, 57
Phaeton, 31

Index

135

Pious Celinda, 10

Saul and the Witch

Play ford, Henry, 98

Playford, John, 97, 98

Schubert, 6, 7

at

Endor,

5,

12

Schumann, 7
42

pointer, 92, 93

Schiitz,

Pordage, Mr., 62
Powell, George, 31
Practica Musica (Fink), 125
Prattica di Musica (Zacconi), 125

Schweitzer, Albert, 75
See how the fading glories, 2

Priest, Josias, 16, 23, 33, 38

Shakespeare, 16-18, 20-22, 30, 39,

Prindpes du Clavecin, 91
Principles of Musick, 122, 126
Private Music, The, 59, 63

46 50, 51
Sibley Library, see Eastman School

Prophetess, The, 18, 19

Siege of Limerick, The, 98

Purcell, Daniel, 31, 32, 113, 117,

118; Edward,

ward

(2),

(i),

114; Ed-

114; Frances,

8, 32,

68, 8 1

Self-Banished, The, 3

Elkanah, 22

Settle,

of Music
Siege of Rhodes, The, 35

Simpson, Christopher, 80, 95, 97,

ioi, 122, 124
Sir Anthony Love, 26

Purcell Society, 14, 15, 17, 52, 67,

gin, $2n, io8rc, 119, 128

Smith, Bernard, 68, 69

Snow, Moses, 58

Quantz, Joachim, 124, 125, 126

Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, 18

Sonatas, see Trio Sonatas

'So

Raguenet, Francois, 75, 95

Ravenscroft, Edward, 33

when the glittering

'Sound Fame', 13
Sound the Trumpet, 10
Staggins, Nicholas, 62

Stanford

University,
106, 121

Reading, Mr., 34
Richardson, Thomas, 62, 63

Queen*, 13

California,

Stevens, Denis, lion

Strunk, O., 75,

Sweeter than Roses, 4, 10
<

Rimbault, E. F., 53, 56n

Rinaldo and Armida, 19, 23, 24*1
Robert, Anthony, 59
Roi Soleil, Le, see Louis

XIV

Roscius Anglicanus, 33
Rosenfeld, Sybil, 33
Rossi, Michael Angelo, 71
*.*j\j
i\^eu-., 126
Rousseau, Jean,

j.\.vycoova.i-4.j

of Music, LouAcademy
'
Royal
J
,

don, 106, 118, 121

Royal College of Music, London,
16

109

Tallis, 44,

Tate,

Nahum,

3,

15,

16, 18, 21,

22, 28, 31, 32, 34, 35-41,

46

Tempest, The, 4

Temple Church, 68
.

Teabul7
tf\

MS.
->>

1266,

t A

T->T

15,

17, 24,

TOX_^n

30, 32, 34, 121, 128-30

TenbuT> St - *&&*$* CoUege,
14,

Theatre Notebook, 33

Saint-Lambert, Michel de, 91

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane,

Sakka, Reiser, 129

Drtuy Lane

Sandford, Francis, 6l, 62, 63

es not a swain,

i,

7, 100,

102

see