Abstract
The death of Henry Purcell on 21 November 1695, while still at the height of his powers and scarcely approaching middle age, is a landmark in the creative history of London’s music-making that cannot be ignored. Yet, taking a broader view, that year is not as significant a turning-point as 1688 or 1702, years that marked changes of occupancy in the English throne. The fact that those dates are apparently ‘political’ rather than ‘musical’ immediately points up the central significance of court tastes and court patronage to professional musical life in London. Purcel’s career in his last years had been profoundly affected by a change of direction at court. King William Ill’s command, relayed through the Dean of the Chapel Royal on 23 February 1689,1
That there shall be no musick [i.e. musical instruments] in the Ghappell, but the Organ.
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Bibliographical Note
General background
General histories of the period, with their emphasis on political history, tend to divide at the change in the royal house in 1714: thus, for example, C. Hill’s The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714 (London, 1961) is followed by J. B. Owen’s The Eighteenth Century, 1714–1815 (London, 1974).
The same division is found in the more detailed volumes of The Oxford History of England: G. Clark, The Later Stuarts 1660–1714 (Oxford, 1956)
B. Williams, The Whig Supremacy 1714–1760 (Oxford, 1962).
As introductory biographies of the British monarchs of the period, J. P. Kenyon’s The Stuarts: a Study in English Kingship (London, 1958)
J. H. Plumb’s The First Four Georges (London, 1956, 1966) are both excellent, and two of the individual monarchs have been well served by detailed modern scholarship in E. Gregg, Queen Anne (London, 1980)
R. Hatton, George I, Elector and King (London, 1978). Since patronage and public events exerted a considerable influence on London’s musical life during the period, these biographies are of more than usual relevance.
Biographical studies of the noble patrons do not necessarily pay much attention to their musical interests, though such interests naturally feature in C. H. G. and M. I. Baker’s The Life and Circumstances of James Brydges, First Duke of Chandos (Oxford, 1949)
J. Johnson’s Princely Chandos (Gloucester, 1984).
In its own field, A. S. Turbeville’s English Men and Manners in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1929, repr. 1964)
still has no successor, and the same is true of M. D. George’s London Life in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1925).
However, a valuable, less specialized survey of the period is available in R. Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Har-mondsworth, 1982).
The growth of interest in artistic patronage that was enabled by Britain’s growing economic stability is well outlined in B. Denvir, The Eighteenth Century: Art, Design and Society 1689–1789 (London, 1983);
of relevance also are J. H. Plumb, The Commercialisation of Leisure in the 18th Century (Reading, 1973)
N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society (London, 1982).
The musical world
London-based English music receives fair treatment within the relevant volumes of the New Oxford History of Music: volume v, Opera and Church Music 1630–1750, ed. A. Lewis and N. Fortune (London, 1975) and volume vi, Concert Music 1630–1750, ed. G. Abraham (Oxford, 1986);
in the relevant chapters of E. Walker’s A History of Music in England, rev. J. A. Westrup (Oxford, 1952). Modern scholarly treatment of the period is provided in The Eighteenth Century, volume iv of BlackwelVs History of Music in Britain, ed. H. D. Johnstone and R. Fiske (Oxford, 1990), which also includes a detailed specialist bibliography.
Although much important research on the musical life of the period has been undertaken in recent years, most of the fruits have been published in journal articles or dissertations that are not easily available to the general reader. This is specially true of the important work done by Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume on the programmes and managements of the ‘musical’ theatre companies: their joint edition of Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Theatrical Papers 1706–1715 (Carbondale, IL, 1982) takes us straight into the tangled history of the London theatres at the period. G. A. Price’s Music in the Restoration Theatre (Ann Arbor, 1979) outlines the changing programmes of the respective theatres in the early period, and the specific topic of opera is taken up by R. D. Hume’s ‘Opera in London, 1695–1706’, in British Theatre and the Other Arts, 1660–1800, ed. S. S. Kenny (Washington DC, 1984). Other references to articles by Milhous and Hume are given in the above notes. An important general survey of the theatre music of the period is R. Fiske, English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1973, 2/1986). The programmes of the theatres themselves can be followed through the various volumes of The London Stage, ed. W. van Lennep, E. L. Avery and A. H. Scouten (Carbondale, IL, 1960–68), and the careers of individual performers can be followed from P. H. Highfill jr and others, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and other Stage Personnel in London 1660–1800 (Garbondale, IL, 1973-). Individual performers, composers, librettists and operas are also well covered in Grove 0. Fiske’s treatment of London’s theatre music excludes the repertory of Handel’s performances, which is dealt with in W. Dean and J. M. Knapp, Handel’s Operas 1704–1726 (Oxford, 1987);
W. Dean, Handel and the Opera Seria (London, 1970);
W. Dean, HandeVs Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London, 1959).
Other areas of music-making are less well represented in accessible literature. C. Dearnley’s English Church Music 1650–1750 (London, 1970) remains the only book in its field, though the music of the leading London composers is dealt with in J. S. Bumpus, A History of English Cathedral Music (London, 1908).
There is, as yet, no modern study devoted to London’s musical clubs and concert societies, though one specialist strand of this activity is dealt with in W. H. Husk, An Account of the Musical Celebrations on St Cecilia’s Day (London, 1857, 3/1862), and the cultural ambience that promoted the growth of interest in ‘ancient’ music is well outlined in W. Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1992).
O. E. Deutsch, Handel: a Documentary Biography (London, 1955), now revised and expanded in Händel-Handbuch: gleichzeitig Supplement zu Hallische Händel-Ausgabe, Dokumente zu Leben und Schaffen, iv (Leipzig and Kassel, 1985), includes a wealth of primary material from the period, much of it having wider relevance beyond the music of Handel.
Biographies of Handel abound: among the most recent is C. Hogwood, Handel (London, 1984),
D. Burrows, Handel (London, 1993);
H. C. Robbins Landon’s Handel and his World (London, 1984)
J. Keates’s Handel, the Man and his Music (London, 1985) also have points of interest. The only other books on individual composers and their music are H. Langley, Doctor Arne (Cambridge, 1938),
D. R. Martin, The Operas and Operatic Style of John Frederick Lampe (Detroit, 1985). For more recent information on Arne, and for biographical studies of significant figures such as Blow, Croft, Greene, Boyce and Stanley, recourse must be made first to the articles on these composers in Grove 6, which also has articles on specific musical clubs and societies and a general article on music-making in London. Although journal articles have not in general been included in this review, an exception must be made for L. Lindgren’s ‘The Accomplishments of the Learned and Ingenious Nicola Francesco Haym (1678–1729)’, Studi musicali, xvi (1987), 247–380.
An interesting contemporary voice from the early part of the period is easily accessible in J. Wilson, ed., Roger North on Music (London, 1959). Any historian of the period must acknowledge his indebtedness to BurneyH and HawkinsH - and recognize that much of their material is based on anecdote or distant recollection.
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Burrows, D. (1993). London: Commercial Wealth and Cultural Expansion. In: Buelow, G.J. (eds) The Late Baroque Era. Man & Music. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11303-3_12
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