by James B. Hartman
Henry Purcell: The Origin and Development of His Musical Style, by Martin Adams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xiii + 388 pages. $59.95.
Purcell Studies, edited by Curtis Price. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xii + 305 pages. $64.95.
The Purcell Companion, edited by Michael Burden. Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1995. xiii + 504 pages, 16 b/w illustrations. $39.95 hardcover plus $6.50 s&h, $19.95 papercover plus $4.50 s&h. Available from the publisher, 133 S.W. Second Ave., Portland, OR 97204-3527.
Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, edited by Michael Burden. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. xvii + 302 pages. $85.00.
The books under review here comprise a second group of works published in recognition of the 300th anniversary of the death of Henry Purcell in 1695. Those in the first group--Henry Purcell by Robert King, Purcell Remembered by Michael Burden, Henry Purcell by Peter Holman--that were reviewed in the November issue of this journal (pp. 15-17), are general in outlook: they present the historical background of Purcell's time, provide a picture of his life from scattered sources, and establish a credible context for his compositional genres. The books now to be discussed, which include three collections of essays, are more closely focussed: they deal with specific aspects of the development of Purcell's musical style and performance practices, then and now. All of these works contribute much to deepening our appreciation of this 17th-century master from these diverse viewpoints, ranging from the social and musical setting in which he worked to the opinions of critics and musicians across the centuries.
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Martin Adams is at Trinity College, Dublin; his first book, Henry Purcell, The Origin and Development of His Musical Style, is a comprehensive exploration and analysis of Purcell's musical style. Unlike Peter Holman's study, which often discusses the same compositional genres within the broader context of Purcell's musical world, Martin Adams deals more closely with the influences of other composers, both within England and abroad, on Purcell's compositional development, particularly in the newly emerging ode and English opera. His declared intention is to demonstrate that, in spite of surface changes in Purcell's style during his lifetime, "he was a deeply conservative composer who had to struggle to reconcile the tide of the times--which he helped so strongly on its way, and which he identified primarily with Italian music--with the compositional priorities of his early music" (p. ix). In spite of the complex web of both native and foreign influences surrounding Purcell, Adams aims to identify those distinctively Purcellian musical traits common to the composer's output in diverse genres.
The evidence for these claims is presented in two separate but interdependent sections. Part One, "Stylistic development and influences," covers Purcell's lifespan in five chapters: his early years at court and home around 1680; the years of experiment between 1680 and 1685; the three-year period of progress, synthesis, and consolidation from 1685; the time of public recognition between 1689 and 1691; and the concluding period from 1692 to 1695, when Purcell was at the height of his compositional powers and public reputation. Part Two, "Analytical and generic studies," retraces Purcell's compositional life in greater depth and selectivity in ten chronologically ordered chapters dealing with the main genres: instrumental music, sacred music, independent songs, odes, and dramatic music. Considerable attention is devoted to identifying specific English and continental stylistic influences. Throughout the book, Adams notes Purcell's struggles to retain certain traditional stylistic elements while attempting to expand their expressive possibilities into new forms. Even so, he remarks on facets of Purcell's inherent conservatism, "not in the sense of being old-fashioned, but in that he seems to have been dissatisfied by modern developments which abandoned that polyphonic and motivic rigour characteristic of those earlier styles which interested him" (p. 14).
The primary influences on the eighteen-year-old Purcell, as a precocious composer at the Chapel Royal, were the compositional models of his contemporaries, particularly John Blow and Matthew Locke; his later songs and odes exhibited indebtedness to Blow, and some of his instrumental pieces to his mentor, Locke. In Purcell's early experimental years, his vocal works evidenced the development of techniques suitable to the English language and the amalgamation of complex polyphony with modern structural methods; in later years he exceeded any of his predecessors in the development of musico-dramatic contexts in his operas.
As for continental influences, although Purcell may have encountered North European sonata manuscripts, and a number of Germanic composers were active in London in the 1690s, there is little indication of any direct dependency on German sources. Purcell's adoption of French models, on the other hand, is more evident in his songs, in his treatment of the instrumental chaconne, and in the stylistic features of other more elaborate works, such as Dido and Aeneas, King Arthur, The Fairy Queen, and Dioclesian. In spite of the prevalence of French practices, the more innovative Italian style appealed both to Locke and Purcell.
The extent and significance of Purcell's fondness for Italianate style can be appreciated by the fact that Adams refers to this matter in about one quarter of the pages of his book. In the introduction to the 1683 Sonnata's of III Parts: Two Violins and Bass: To the Organ or Harpsichord, a highlight of his experimental period, Purcell wrote that their dominant inspiration was the attempt to achieve "a just imitation of the most fam'd Italian masters." The reference may have been to any number of Italian composers, perhaps including Corelli, but particularly the works of Lelio Colista (1629-1680), whose compositional characteristics Adams compares with Purcell's in search of evidence of the tension between the latter's conservative and modern tendencies. Adams later identifies similar Italianate tendencies both in Purcell's instrumental music and in his vocal music, where specific techniques were adapted to forceful expressive and dramatic ends; they are to be found in such diverse contexts as operatic aspects of Dido and Aeneas, the musical processes of most movements of King Arthur, instrumental sonatas in The Fairy Queen and elsewhere, trumpet-style pieces from Italian sonatas in Dioclesian, choral and orchestral textures of the odes, and in the vocal and instrumental idioms of his music for the drama.
Adams' enthusiasm for Purcell's music is not confined to the master's most well-known works, but covers less-familiar pieces as well. At the same time, his even-handed treatment also notes occasional weaknesses and shortcomings, such as structural lapses, lack of organic unity and connectedness in large-scale processes, overpredictable repetition techniques, unfocussed internal cross-relations, surface flamboyance, and other misjudgments. Nevertheless, Adams makes a convincing case for Purcell's brilliant imagination, resourceful technique, and wide range of expressiveness that have contributed to his unparalleled reputation for mastery of text and music. This book, with its 151 musical examples and select bibliography of 116 references, is an invaluable companion in the search for a deeper understanding of the stylistic and expressive revelations of Purcell's extraordinary musical genius.
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In 1959, a collection of nine essays edited by Imogen Holst was published in recognition of the tercentenary of Purcell's birth; they dealt with some of the practical problems of editing Purcell's works for performance, and three appendices considered the manuscripts, their location, and their authenticity as autographs.1 Purcell Studies, a new collection of twelve specially commissioned essays, edited by Curtis Price, now principal of the Royal Academy of Music, London, is intended to complement the earlier collection. The majority of the essays incorporate recent research on Purcell's compositional techniques through a study of his manuscripts; other more specialized articles explore the relationship between Purcell and John Blow, and examine Purcell's court odes, performance practice, and the anatomy and subsequent revivals of King Arthur.
The articles dealing specifically with manuscript-related topics (Robert Thompson, Robert Shay, Rebecca Herissone, Curtis Price, Peter Holman) are a music historian's delight, with their meticulous consideration of dating and chronology, handwriting, ink color, paper quality and watermarks, and other physical evidence. In general, they attempt to ascertain the practical function of autograph manuscripts in Purcell's working life by reconstructing the compositional evolution of his scorebooks, along with his treatment of literary texts, revision techniques, and changes in musical language from the early to the later works. The discovery in 1993 of an autograph manuscript of Purcell's keyboard music generates speculation about the teaching function of the haphazard remainder of similar pieces, some of which might have been arranged from orchestral sources. Another newly discovered autograph score of an anthem by the temperamental cathedral musician Daniel Roseingrave raises questions as to why Purcell would have copied out, for teaching purposes, this interesting but imperfect work.
There is a topical affinity between one essay dealing specifically with Purcell's relations with John Blow (Bruce Wood), another analyzing Purcell's odes (Ian Spink), and a third connecting Purcell, Blow, and the English court ode (Martin Adams). Although the fact of the long relationship between Purcell and Blow is generally accepted, the essays in this book provide a deeper understanding of common structural links in their respective works, perhaps the closest between Blow's Venus and Adonis and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Their mutual interest in Italian music, similar orchestral techniques, and other imitative affinities point to a mutual and friendly rivalry in the interchange of musical ideas, although Purcell was the bolder innovator of the two. The particular consideration of Purcell's odes deals with poetic and literary models, the welcome songs, birthday odes, the St. Cecilia odes, and other miscellaneous odes. Taken together, although they contain much of Purcell's best music, the stilted and bombastic verses of the welcome songs and birthday odes in particular are full of political as well as classical allusions, and they often served as propaganda tools for monarchical legitimacy. It is claimed that the mutual influence between Blow and Purcell emerges most clearly in the court odes, which was a recognized poetic genre in England by the 1660s. The discussion of their respective musical treatments of these text-sensitive and flamboyant entertainments indicates that while Blow's technically imaginative search for new stylistic methods was a stimulus for Purcell, the latter's command of formal and stylistic elements accounted for his lead as a technical innovator by 1683.
Two paired articles deal with the elusive problem of the relation between musical time and expressiveness. The first (A. Margaret Laurie), which considers the matter of continuity and tempo in Purcell's vocal works, deals with the linking of movements through the logical succession of keys, common pulse, and transitional tempos. A possible connection between music and technology is behind the speculation that Purcell's fascination with new developments in clock- and watch-making in the 1670s might explain the introduction of clock timings into performance instructions--perhaps intended only for beginners--of some collections of pieces. Even so, Purcell did offer some explanations of time words, such "quick," "brisk," and "slow," to supplement given time signatures and to clarify his intentions. The complementary essay (Katherine Rohrer) on poetic metre, musical metre, and dance types in Purcell's vocal works seeks to demonstrate that his choice of particular musical metrical frameworks was dictated by poetic stresses in opening lines of the text. Moreover, his choices of rhythmical outlines often relied on contemporary French dance models, and many compositional decisions were highly rule-bound responses to various verse types. Nevertheless, Purcell's genius lay in his ability to transform these conventional forms into highly expressive works uniting text and music.
The two concluding essays on King Arthur deal with the anatomy of this work and its 18th-century adaptions, respectively. The first (Andrew Pinnock) deals with the collaboration between two foremost figures of the time: Dryden the dramatic poet and Purcell the composer. Tantalizing but unresolved questions about the dramatic opera concern the date of the original draft of the 1691 production, ambiguous satirical or allegorical allusions to royalty, subsequent revisions, mismatches between the poets's libretto and Purcell's compositional style, and the authenticity of both the text and the setting of some of the songs. The second article (Ellen T. Harris), after touching on parallels with Shakespeare's Tempest, analyzes several of the opera's later revivals, particularly the one in 1770 by the poet David Garrick and the composer Thomas Arne, a collaboration that was not without tensions regarding both the text and the music, disputes that perhaps reflected changing contemporary taste. Later revivals were marked by compressions, cuts, additions, and other "improvements," all of which fuel the contemporary controversy between coexisting revisionist and authentic viewpoints on the preservation of the original works.
Prelude and postlude: while Curtis Price shares the frustration of other Purcell scholars who have lamented the lack of direct information concerning the personality of the man himself, in an opening introduction he speculates that "a more general appreciation of his music will not arrive until that personality is better fixed in the public imagination" (p. 1). His tentative personality reconstruction of Purcell, derived both from those who knew him and from emerging knowledge about his compositional habits, points to a proud man, confident of his talent, sometimes brooding and irritable, who may have had a certain contempt for the inability of a tune-loving public to fully appreciate the subtleties of his music. The author of a concluding afterword (Janet Snowman) on the origin of a small watercolor portrait of the young Purcell, dating from the 18th century and now in the collection of the Royal Academy of Music, London, wisely avoids drawing any psychological character inferences from the picture, whose exact origin remains unknown.
The twelve essays in this book (including one by its compiler) are arranged in a sequential grouping of topics, proceeding from the general to the specific, that supplies a desirable continuity seldom achieved in edited collections of articles. While there is some overlapping content, this has been allowed to exist in the interest of completeness and internal coherence within the individual pieces. At the same time, the coverage of all of Purcell's major compositional genres adds to this overall survey of recent research on his work, a valuable supplement to the first such collection devised by Imogen Holst almost forty years ago.
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Michael Burden, Lecturer in Music at New College, Oxford, and director of the New Chamber Opera, has written widely on 17th- and 18th-century music and 20th-century musical theater. His compilation of selections from original sources, Purcell Remembered, was discussed in the preceding series of reviews about the composer. The Purcell Companion, a collection of articles by contributors of diverse backgrounds--university lecturers, scholars, music directors, editors, musicologists, radio producers--united in their interest and expertise in Purcell, cover all aspects of his work. The eleven essays are arranged in five divisions that deal with introductory matters, background issues, church and chamber compositions, the theater, and performance practice.
The introductory essay on the Purcell phenomenon (Andrew Pinnock) explains how Purcell acquired his reputation in his own lifetime and how his successors preserved it, particularly through such societies as the Purcell Club (1836), the Musical Antiquarian Society (1840), the Purcell Society (1876, still going strong), the work of biographers, notable performances, the marketing techniques of today's recording industry, and increasingly specialized musicological studies, as well as the tercentenary celebrations of 1959 and 1995.
The first of the three background essays (Jonathan P. Wainwright) deals with Purcell and the English Baroque, and advocates a recognition of the interconnections between the political, religious, and literary trends of the time. The recurrent question of foreign influences on Purcell is summarized in the judgment that Purcell's heterogeneous and versatile musical style is a synthesis of English (Matthew Locke, in particular), French, and Italian elements. A complementary essay (Graham Dixon) on Purcell's Italianate circle does not consider specific musical influences, but notes the publication of Italian music in London, the presence of Italian musicians and composers living in London, visiting Italian singers, and the approval of the literary figure Samuel Pepys, all of which could be taken as indicators of public taste. Even Purcell's reference to the unidentified "fam'd Italian masters" in his introduction to his Sonnata's of III Parts might be understood as a marketing ploy catering to the current vogue for Italian music. The concluding essay (Michael Burden) in the background series looks at Purcell's contemporaries: indigenous English composers of the time from the forgotten (Henry Cooke, William Child, Pelham Humphrey) to the remembered (Matthew Locke, John Blow), along with other minor composers and singers who performed in Purcell's works. There is even some speculation about Purcell's sociable drinking pals, for whom the published texts of the composer's bawdy catches had a certain risqué appeal.
The article on Purcell's music for the church (Eric Van Tassel)--the longest in the book: 99 pages and 26 musical examples--considers the various genres (full anthem, full-verse anthem, verse anthem, symphony anthem, and concerted anthem) and their chronological phases. Taken together, the analysis of these types is an intricate exploration into Purcell's transformation of musical language through the use of dramatic devices, linking of chorus movements, symbolism, word painting, imagery, the shaping of vocal lines, imitation and pictorial gestures, stylistic integration, and other richly expressive techniques through which Purcell transformed commonplace texts into works of artistic imagination unequalled in English church music. In a similar fashion, the reappraisal of Purcell's odes (Bruce Wood) attempts to provide a full picture of Purcell's musical development in this long-neglected genre. The poetic hack-work, feeble doggerel, and general poverty of the literary texts--one was written by a school pupil--have detracted from an appreciation of the musical qualities of the court odes, which include sumptuous orchestral writing, resourceful tonal plans, and assured counterpoint. Yet, Hail! Bright Cecilia! remains the grandest of 17th-century English odes; the less exalted Come Ye Sons of Art Away is no less fine in its musical illumination of ideas in the text. Purcell's creative vitality in the odes perhaps exceeds that in his anthems.
The assessment of the little-known genre of consort music (Peter Holman) reveals different traditions, problems, and ambiguities, beginning with the term itself. Examples discussed here include overtures, chaconnes, pavans, fantasias, trio sonatas, and ayres, all of which are examined with respect to their scoring, musical language, harmonic style, and formal patterns. Remarks on the early history of these forms are supplemented by accounts of the role of the chamber organ and the introduction of the violin. The lack of success of the sonatas in their day is attributed to their serious contrapuntal nature, intended more for the player than the listener; the breezy, tuneful Ayres for the Theatre, on the other hand, gained popular status as they were reshuffled for later concert use.
The first of two essays on the theater (Edward A. Langhans) reconstructs the social context in which Purcell's music was performed by describing the two public London theaters and the varied audiences that attended the spectacles staged there. Detailed descriptions are given of their architectural features, the placement of musicians, illumination, audience behavior, stage design, scenery, and other elaborate technical mechanisms that contributed to the world of visual make-believe. The account of Purcell's theater music (Roger Savage) covers his career at the playhouse that occupied the last five years of his life, during which he was involved in the production of 40 shows at Drury Lane and Dorset Garden. His ayres and songs served small-scale preluding and interluding functions, while the overtures performed a framing or mood-mirroring function. The description of the interplay of ceremonies, masques, and magic in these musical spectacles, often involving supernatural elements and sacred rites, is supplemented by a close examination of Dido and Aeneas, in which Purcell contributed graphic musical sequences in support of these dramatic aspects. The connections in subject and treatment between this opera and Purcell's other dramatic works are also outlined in some detail.
Purcell in performance is the subject of the two concluding essays. The first (Andrew Parrott) focusses on several critical issues, with reliance on performing materials: keyboard tuning systems and their implication for continuo performance, the harpsichord and the viol as continuo instruments, theorbo-lutes and guitars, orchestras on the French model, expressive vibrato, woodwinds, pitch, and aspects of vocal resources and performance, all of which contribute to a greater understanding of the craftsmanship involved. The second essay (Roger Savage) returns to Dido and Aeneas through a consideration of a variety of production problems that confront present-day conductors, designers, and choreographers, for example: programming the short piece, the appropriate performing edition, the connection with Virgil's Aeneid, visual decor, the chorus, portrayal of the dramatic characters and main events, and unification of visual and musical stylistic elements. It is recommended that the attempt should be to produce a memorable event for contemporary audiences, not copies of an unknowable first performance at a boarding school for girls in 1689.
Like the preceding collection of essays edited by Curtis Price, the unity of Michael Burden's compilation is aided by the topical grouping of the essays. While the general reader will find the exacting level of detailed analysis difficult to assimilate, and even specialists and researchers may not want to attempt a cover-to-cover encounter with this book, the essays will repay repeated consultation in areas of particular interest. The editor's comprehensive bibliography of 284 items is an added scholarly bonus, and 16 black-and-white illustrations provide visual enrichment.
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Michael Burden's third contribution to the recognition of Purcell's tercentenary is another edited collection, but with a different origin and focus. As he explains in the preface, the fifteen constituent essays originated from a conference on the topic "Performing the Music of Henry Purcell," held in Exeter College, Oxford, in 1993. In this case it was the idea of a collection of essays that produced the conference, not the other way around. Even so, this collection does not represent the complete conference proceedings, for some of the papers presented have been omitted and others have been added. The result is a wide-ranging compilation of articles on diverse subjects, some of which do not focus directly on Purcell's music, but enlighten the reader on relatively obscure but nevertheless fascinating aspects of the social-cultural environment of the composer's time. Among the practical skills of the scholars responsible for these essays are those of violin maker, organ builder, choirmaster, musical director, stage designer, tutor of dramatic art, and stage producer--all of which add an aspect of authoritative, hands-on experience to their academic presentations.
The book is divided into two parts: eight essays on "Performing the Music" and seven on "Staging the Operas." An opening essay (Peter Holman) considers the evidence in existing Oxford manuscripts for reconstructing the conditions of the performance of Restoration music for voices and instruments; although the Oxford ode was a standardized type of composition, the scoring practice appears to have been quite diverse. A discussion of the features of the English organ in Purcell's lifetime (Dominic Gwynn) focuses on sounds and stops (the reception of imitative sounds), layout (location and casing of the main divisions), compass (ranging from 49 to 52 notes), and pitch (low and high, including the preferences of Robert Dallam, Thomas and Renatus Harris, and Bernard Smith). Violin-making in England is the topic of an essay (John Dilworth) that touches on both Italian and English design and construction practices in a time when "English violin making dragged itself from the dark ages to the renaissance during the short lifetime of Purcell" (p. 48).
The essays in the remainder of the first section deal with matters of historical performance. The discussion of Purcell's "Ekotick" trumpet notes (Peter Downey) reveals how the performance of nonharmonic pitches was assisted by the invention of a telescopic slide mechanism. An attempted reconstruction of the first performance of Purcell's music for the funeral of Queen Mary (Bruce Wood) confronts a number of problems relating to the choral music, the march, the drummers and what they played, instrumental textures, and the organization of the burial. An analysis of keyboard ornamentation (H. Diack Johnstone) subjects the influential "Rules for Graces," published in the third (1699) edition of Purcell's keyboard collection, to close analysis. Two complementary essays relating to vocal matters conclude the section on performance: the first, on Purcell's stage singers (Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson), yields insights into both the teaching and performance of singing at the time, with detailed references to leading personalities and their activities in the field; the second (Timothy Morris) focusses on voice ranges, voice types, and pitch in Purcell's concerted works, but shuns conclusive pronouncements in the face of inadequate evidence.
The first essay in the second part of the book that deals with staging the operas (Michael Burden) confronts the issue of dramatic integration (or its lack) by documenting varieties of "debauchery" ("corruption, debasement, or contamination of the original work") of past performances that departed from the original texts. The relentless attack examines instrumental arrangements, rearrangements of scenes and scores, extraneous music, costume designs, and various illogical versions; the condemnation extends even to the productions of such major Purcellian protagonists as Charles Villiers Stanford, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Constant Lambert, and Benjamin Britten. Next, a departure into the nonmusical world of allegory (Andrew R. Watling) provides a useful background for understanding topical or political allusions found in 17th-century dramatic texts and how audiences of that time might have unlocked their hidden meanings (specific reference is made to Dido and Aeneas). The place of dancing and the types of dance music also receives scholarly attention (Richard Semmens), with particular consideration of the French influence and the linking of music and choreography. The question of what Purcell's operas may actually have looked like is addressed in a discourse on costume and etiquette (Ruth-Eva Ronen) that describes wardrobe fashions of the time and the way people behaved. In the absence of other surviving evidence, the assembled recollections of two of Purcell's contemporaries, the lawyer-critic Roger North and the singer-actress Charlotte Butler, are suggestive of the reception accorded Purcell's stage works (Roger Savage). In particular, a reconstruction of the performance of Purcell's Dioclesian (Julia and Frans Muller) provides technical information about the scenery and staging of the production. The concluding essay (Lionel Sawkins) speculates on the question of a plausible shivering tempo in the music Purcell wrote for the Frost Scene in King Arthur, described by an 18th-century critic as "that exquisite piece called the freezing piece of musick."
Four appendices include a catalogue of surviving original parts of Restoration concerted music at Oxford, a list of 34 English viol- and violin-makers working in London in the second half of the 17th century, a documentary list of Purcell's stage singers, and a list of dances in Purcell's operas. Twenty-eight black-and-white plates relate exclusively to the staging of dramatic productions of the time.
This collection of essays, like the other two anthologies, has its own distinctive qualities: impeccable scholarship on the part of the authors, logical selection and organization by the editor, and much fascinating content for the readers, generalists and specialists alike. While there is little actual duplication of content among the three edited collections, there is enough subtle reinforcement on certain topics to provide a sense of literary déja vu for readers who have both the interest and persistence to explore all of them.
The concluding remarks of the Introduction to Performing the Music of Henry Purcell provide an fitting conclusion to this series of books, along with a speculation on the future of Purcell studies and performances:
There are many hopeful signs that the Purcell tercentenary will not just have been an exploitation of the things we know best about the composer. . . .
This collection of performance studies represents not a final stage but a continuing process of exploration of Purcell's music and its present-day realization. It would be boring indeed if we ever reached a conclusion about these endlessly fascinating subjects. Every new performance must go on creating a different idea of the music, and Purcell's compositions, with their inexaustible possibilities, will make us rise to the challenge.2
In short, in Shakespeare's phrase, "Whereof what's past is prologue."3
