Baroque music of the British Isles

Last updated
George Frideric Handel was a leading figure of early 18th century British music. Haendel.jpg
George Frideric Handel was a leading figure of early 18th century British music.

Baroque music of the British Isles bridged the gap between the early music of the Medieval and Renaissance periods and the development of fully fledged and formalised orchestral classical music in the second half of the eighteenth century. It was characterised by more elaborate musical ornamentation, changes in musical notation, new instrumental playing techniques and the rise of new genres such as opera. Although the term Baroque is conventionally used for European music from about 1600, its full effects were not felt in Britain until after 1660, delayed by native trends and developments in music, religious and cultural differences from many European countries and the disruption to court music caused by the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and Interregnum. [1] Under the restored Stuart monarchy the court became once again a centre of musical patronage, but royal interest in music tended to be less significant as the seventeenth century progressed, to be revived again under the House of Hanover. The Baroque era in British music can be seen as one of an interaction of national and international trends, sometimes absorbing continental fashions and practices and sometimes attempting, as in the creation of ballad opera, to produce an indigenous tradition. However, arguably the most significant British composer of the era, George Frideric Handel, was a naturalised German, who helped integrate British and continental music and define the future of the classical music of the United Kingdom that would be officially formed in 1801.

Contents

Charles II

Henry Purcell (1659-95), whose early career was devoted to secular music and later by sacred music Henry Purcell.jpg
Henry Purcell (1659–95), whose early career was devoted to secular music and later by sacred music

With the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II made the court once more the centre of musical patronage in Britain, the theatres were reopened and, after the introduction of a new Book of Common Prayer in 1662, choral music began to be developed again. [2] The king's time on the continent, his (hidden) preference for Catholicism and explicit desire for entertainment led to the embracing of the Baroque and continental forms of music. [2] The court became something of a crossroads of European musicians and styles on a much grander scale than previously achieved. It was probably in these circumstances that Welsh musicians at the court encountered the Italian triple harp, which they adopted and which by the end of the century had supplanted simpler harps to become a national Welsh symbol. [3] As well as encouraging many French musicians to join his court, the king dispatched the young Pelham Humfrey (1647–74) to study in Paris, probably in 1665. When he returned he became the Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal and composer to the Court. [4] Although he died aged only 27 he was highly influential on other English composers like William Turner (1651–1740), John Blow (1649–1708) and Henry Purcell (1659–95). [5] Early in his career Purcell wrote secular music, including for the theatre. Later, as organist of Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, he devoted himself to sacred music. In both fields he emerged as the most influential British composer of the era. [6]

English opera

It was directly due to Charles II's patronage that English language opera, which had briefly surfaced in the 1650s, was re-established in the 1670s. [7] In 1673, Thomas Shadwell's Psyche, patterned on the 1671 'comédie-ballet' of the same name produced by Molière and Jean-Baptiste Lully, marked the revival of the genre. [2] William Davenant produced The Tempest in the same year, which was the first Shakespeare play to be set to music (composed by Locke and Johnson). [2] About 1683, Blow composed Venus and Adonis , often thought of as the first true English-language opera. [8] Purcell produced Dido and Aeneas (1689), often described as the finest in the genre, in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, but much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within the structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream in his The Fairy-Queen (1692) or Beaumont and Fletcher dramas in The Prophetess (1690) and Bonduca (1696). [7] The main characters of the play tended not to be involved in the musical scenes, which meant that Purcell was rarely able to develop his characters through song. Despite these hindrances, his aim (and that of his collaborator John Dryden) was to establish serious opera as a dramatic form in England, but these hopes ended with Purcell's early death at the age of 37 in 1695 and English opera gradually fell out of favour and Italian opera began to dominate. [9]

Court music after the Glorious Revolution

William III and Mary II depicted on the ceiling of the Painted Hall, Greenwich, whose accession limited the scale of Baroque music. William and Mary.jpg
William III and Mary II depicted on the ceiling of the Painted Hall, Greenwich, whose accession limited the scale of Baroque music.

After the death of Charles II in 1685, royal patronage of music became less significant. [7] In the short and troubled reign of his successor James II (1685–88), whose more overt Catholicism, together with his preference for Italian music and musicians, limited patronage of Anglican church music and the Chapel Royal, English composers were pushed towards secular music. [5] Under William III and Mary II (1689–1702) there was an emphasis on combating rebellion and foreign policy, rather than on culture. [10] There was also a reaction against the Catholic and French culture of the court of Louis XIV, resulting in limitations on some elements of the Baroque, most obviously reflected in the royal couple's orders to remove orchestration from anthems from 1689 and from the Chapel Royal in general from 1691, meaning that royal patronage for orchestrated works now only extended to special occasions. [11] The last of the Stuarts, Queen Anne (1702–14), had a reputation for being uninterested in culture, but had a considerable musical education and some talent. [12] As a princess she was a patron of Purcell, Turner and Blow and from the early years of her reign she sponsored compositions for Royal processions and occasions including her coronation and the Acts of Union in 1707, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. [12] Her successor George Elector of Hanover, king of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 to 1727 as George I, was perhaps the most musically minded monarch of the era, bringing German and Italian music and musicians with him when he acceded to the throne, among them George Frideric Handel. [13]

George Frideric Handel

The leading figure in British music of the early 18th century was a naturalized Briton, George Frideric Handel (1685–1759). Although he was born in Germany, he first visited England in 1710, later moving there and becoming a naturalised citizen, playing a defining role in the music of the British Isles. [13] Handel drew heavily on the continental, particularly Italian, Baroque style, but was also highly influenced by English composers such as Purcell. [14] He was a prolific composer, producing major orchestral works such as the Water Music , and the Music for the Royal Fireworks . His opera, including Rinaldo (1711, 1731), Orlando (1733), Ariodante (1735), Alcina (1735) and Serse (1738, also known as Xerxes), helped make Britain second only to Italy as a centre of operatic production. His sacred drama and choral music, particularly the coronation anthem Zadok the Priest (written for the inauguration of George II in 1727) which has remained part of the ceremony for British monarchs, and above all, the Messiah , helped set the British taste in music for the next 200 years. He was a major influence on future classical composers including Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. [15]

Ballad opera

Painting based on The Beggar's Opera, Scene V, by William Hogarth, c. 1728 William Hogarth 016.jpg
Painting based on The Beggar's Opera, Scene V, by William Hogarth, c. 1728

Ballad operas developed as a form of English stage entertainment, partly in opposition to the Italian domination of the London operatic scene. [16] It consisted of racy and often satirical spoken (English) dialogue, interspersed with songs that were deliberately kept very short to minimize disruptions to the flow of the story. Subject matter involved the lower, often criminal, orders, and typically showed a suspension (or inversion) of the high moral values of the Italian opera of the period. The first, most important and successful was The Beggar's Opera of 1728, with a libretto by John Gay and music arranged by John Christopher Pepusch, both of whom probably influenced by Parisian vaudeville and the burlesques and musical plays of Thomas D'Urfey (1653–1723), a number of whose collected ballads they used in their work. [17] Gay produced further works in this style, including a sequel under the title Polly and he was followed by many other composers. There was also a general revival in English language opera in the 1730s, largely attributed to Thomas Arne, the first English composer to experiment with Italian-style all-sung comic opera, unsuccessfully in The Temple of Dullness (1745), Henry and Emma (1749) and Don Saverio (1750), but triumphantly in Thomas and Sally (1760). His opera Artaxerxes (1762) was the first attempt to set a full-blown opera seria in English and was a huge success, holding the stage until the 1830s. [18] Arne played a major role in moving the ballad opera into a more pastoral form, together with Isaac Bickerstaffe producing Love in a Village (1763) using more original music that imitated, rather than reproduced, existing ballads. [18] It was followed by other works like William Shield's Rosina (1781). [19] Although the form declined in popularity towards the end of the eighteenth century, it was maintained into the nineteenth century by figures such as Charles Dibdin and his family and its influence can be seen in light operas like those of Gilbert and Sullivan's, particularly their early works like The Sorcerer (1877). [20]

The popularisation of music

Allan Ramsay, poet and librettist, painted in 1722 by William Aikman Allan-Ramsay.jpg
Allan Ramsay, poet and librettist, painted in 1722 by William Aikman

In the eighteenth century the increasing availability of instruments such as the harpsichord, spinet and later the piano, and cheap print meant that works created for opera and the theatre were often published for private performance, with Thomas Arne's (1710–78) song "Rule Britannia" (1740) probably the best-known. [21] From the 1730s elegant concert halls began to be built across the country and attendance rivalled that of the theatre, facilitating visits by figures such as Haydn, J. C. Bach and the young Mozart. [22] The Italian style of classical music was probably first brought to Scotland by the Italian cellist and composer Lorenzo Bocchi, who travelled to Scotland in the 1720s, introducing the cello to the country and then developing settings for lowland Scots songs. He possibly had a hand in the first Scottish Opera, the pastoral The Gentle Shepherd , with libretto by the makar Allan Ramsay. [23] The extension of interest in music can be seen in the volume of musical publication, festivals, and the foundation of over 100 choral societies across the country. [22] George III (reigned 1760–1820), and the aristocracy in general, continued to be patrons of music through the foundation of organisations like the Royal Concert of Music in 1776 and events like the Handel Festival from 1784. [22] Outside of court patronage there were also a number of major figures, including the Scottish composer Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie (1732–81) well known in his era, but whose work was quickly forgotten after his death and has only just begun to be reappraised. [24]

Notes

  1. ↑ J. P. Wainright, 'England ii, 1603–1642' in J. Haar, ed., European Music, 1520–1640 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp. 509–21.
  2. 1 2 3 4 T. Carter and J. Butt, The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 280, 300, 433 and 541.
  3. ↑ E. J. Hobsbawm and T. O. Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 77.
  4. ↑ D. J. Grout and H. W. Williams, A Short History of Opera (Los Angeles CA: Columbia University Press, 2003), p. 150.
  5. 1 2 I. Spink, Restoration Cathedral Music, 1660–1714: 1660–1714 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 104–5, 121, 137 and 148.
  6. ↑ J. A. Sadie and C. Hogwood, Companion to Baroque Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 301.
  7. 1 2 3 G. J. Buelow, History of Baroque Music: Music in the Seventeenth and First Half of the Eighteenth Centuries (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 26, 306, 309 and 327–8.
  8. ↑ R. Parker, The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 42.
  9. ↑ J. K. Paine, The History of Music to the Death of Schubert (BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009), p. 180.
  10. ↑ A. Marshall, The Age of Faction: Court Politics, 1660–1702 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 68.
  11. ↑ P. Holman, Henry Purcell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 140.
  12. 1 2 R. O. Bucholz, The Augustan Court: Queen Anne and the Decline of Court Culture (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 229–30.
  13. 1 2 J. A. Sadie, Companion to Baroque Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 285.
  14. ↑ P. H. Lang, George Frideric Handel (Courier Dover Publications, 1996), pp. 199–233.
  15. ↑ E. Arweck and W. J. F. Keenan, Materializing Religion: Expression, Performance and Ritual (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), p. 167.
  16. ↑ M. Lubbock, The Complete Book of Light Opera (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962) pp. 467–8.
  17. ↑ F. Kidson, The Beggar's Opera: Its Predecessors and Successors (Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 71.
  18. 1 2 G. Newman and L. E. Brown, eds, Britain in the Hanoverian age, 1714–1837: an Encyclopedia (Taylor & Francis, 1997), p. 29.
  19. ↑ D. J. Grout and H. W. Williams, A Short History of Opera (Columbia University Press, 4th edn., 2003), p. 298.
  20. ↑ G. Wren, A Most Ingenious Paradox: The Art of Gilbert and Sullivan (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 41.
  21. ↑ N. L. York, Turning the world upside down: the War of American Independence and the problem of Empire (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003), pp. 39–40.
  22. 1 2 3 G. Newman and L. E. Brown, eds, Britain in the Hanoverian age, 1714–1837: an Encyclopedia (Taylor & Francis, 1997), pp. 474–7.
  23. ↑ R. Cowgill and P. Holman, "Introduction: centres and peripheries", in R. Cowgill and P. Holman, eds, Music in the British Provinces, 1690–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), ISBN   0-7546-3160-5, p. 4.
  24. ↑ A. S. Garlington, Society, Culture and Opera in Florence, 1814–1830: Dilettantes in an "Earthly Paradise" (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), ISBN   0-7546-3451-5, pp. 19–20.

Related Research Articles

George Frideric Handel German-British Baroque composer (1685–1759)

George FridericHandel was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age.

Henry Purcell English composer (1659–1695)

Henry Purcell was an English composer. Although he incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements, Purcell's style was a uniquely English form of Baroque music. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell is often coupled with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's most important early music composers. No later native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century.

Opera Art form combining sung text and musical score in a theatrical setting

Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another.

Kapellmeister from German Kapelle (chapel) and Meister (master), literally "master of the chapel choir" designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in its meaning and is today used for denoting the leader of a musical ensemble, often smaller ones used for TV, radio, and theatres.

Richard Leveridge Musical artist

Richard Leveridge was an English bass singer of the London stage and a composer of baroque music, including many popular songs.

An air is a song-like vocal or instrumental composition. The term can also be applied to the interchangeable melodies of folk songs and ballads. It is a variant of the musical song form often referred to as aria.

The history of opera in the English language commences in the 17th century.

<i>Agrippina</i> (opera) 1709 opera seria by G. F. Handel

Agrippina is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. Composed for the 1709–10 Venice Carnevale season, the opera tells the story of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, as she plots the downfall of the Roman Emperor Claudius and the installation of her son as emperor. Grimani's libretto, considered one of the best that Handel set, is an "anti-heroic satirical comedy", full of topical political allusions. Some analysts believe that it reflects Grimani's political and diplomatic rivalry with Pope Clement XI.

Classical music of the United Kingdom

Classical music of the United Kingdom is taken in this article to mean classical music in the sense elsewhere defined, of formally composed and written music of chamber, concert and church type as distinct from popular, traditional, or folk music. The term in this sense emerged in the early 19th century, not long after the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came into existence in 1801. Composed music in these islands can be traced in musical notation back to the 13th century, with earlier origins. It has never existed in isolation from European music, but has often developed in distinctively insular ways within an international framework. Inheriting the European classical forms of the 18th century, patronage and the academy and university establishment of musical performance and training in the United Kingdom during the 19th century saw a great expansion. Similar developments occurred in the other expanding states of Europe and their empires. Within this international growth the traditions of composition and performance centred in the United Kingdom, including the various cultural strands drawn from its different provinces, have continued to evolve in distinctive ways through the work of many famous composers.

Harry Christophers Musical artist

Richard Henry Tudor "Harry" Christophers CBE FRSCM is an English conductor.

Michael Burden

Michael Burden, FAHA, is an Australian musicologist, working in the United Kingdom. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2018.

Early music of the British Isles Aspect of history

Early music of Britain and Ireland, from the earliest recorded times until the beginnings of the Baroque in the 17th century, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite. Each of the major nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales retained unique forms of music and of instrumentation, but British music was highly influenced by continental developments, while British composers made an important contribution to many of the major movements in early music in Europe, including the polyphony of the Ars Nova and laid some of the foundations of later national and international classical music. Musicians from the British Isles also developed some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic votive antiphons, and the carol in the medieval era and English madrigals, lute ayres, and masques in the Renaissance era, which would lead to the development of English language opera at the height of the Baroque in the 18th century.

Baroque music Style of Western classical music

Baroque music is a period or style of Western classical music from approximately 1600 to 1750 originated in Western Europe. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, with the galant style marking the transition between Baroque and Classical eras. The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". The works of Georg Friedrich Händel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Key composers of the Baroque era include, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Heinrich Schütz, Dieterich Buxtehude, and others.

Organ concertos, Op. 4 (Handel)

The Handel organ concertos, Op. 4, HWV 289–294, are six organ concertos for chamber organ and orchestra composed by George Frideric Handel in London between 1735 and 1736 and published in 1738 by the printing company of John Walsh. Written as interludes in performances of oratorios in Covent Garden, they were the first works of their kind for this combination of instruments and served as a model for later composers.

Anthony Lewis (musician)

Sir Anthony Carey Lewis was an English musicologist, conductor, composer, and music educator. He co-founded and served as the first chief editor of Musica Britannica, producing scholarly editions of British music hitherto unavailable. He published critical editions of operas by Handel, Purcell and John Blow.

Elisabetta Pilotti-Schiavonetti was an Italian operatic soprano who was associated with the House of Hanover. She was one of the leading prima donnas at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket from 1710 to 1717. She is best remembered today for creating roles in at least four operas by George Frideric Handel, possibly five. Three of the roles that Handel wrote specifically for her were sorceresses, and the demands of those roles indicate that she possessed an exceptional voice capable of both dramatic power and technical agility. She is said to have had a bitter rivalry with the Queen's other leading soprano, Isabella Girardeau.

Music in early modern Scotland Forms of musical production in Scotland between the early 16c and the mid-18c

Music in early modern Scotland includes all forms of musical production in Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. In this period the court followed the European trend for instrumental accompaniment and playing. Scottish monarchs of the sixteenth century were patrons of religious and secular music, and some were accomplished musicians. In the sixteenth century the playing of a musical instrument and singing became an expected accomplishment of noble men and women. The departure of James VI to rule in London at the Union of Crowns in 1603, meant that the Chapel Royal, Stirling Castle largely fell into disrepair and the major source of patronage was removed from the country. Important composers of the early sixteenth century included Robert Carver and David Peebles. The Lutheranism of the early Reformation was sympathetic to the incorporation of Catholic musical traditions and vernacular songs into worship, exemplified by The Gude and Godlie Ballatis (1567). However, the Calvinism that came to dominate Scottish Protestantism led to the closure of song schools, disbanding of choirs, removal of organs and the destruction of music books and manuscripts. An emphasis was placed on the Psalms, resulting in the production of a series of Psalters and the creation of a tradition of unaccompanied singing.

<i>Parnasso in festa</i> 1734 opera by Handel

Parnasso in festa, per li sponsali di Teti e Peleo, by George Frideric Handel, is a festa teatrale, a form also called a "serenata", a type of Italian opera intended as entertainment to celebrate a festive royal or state occasion. The work was written to celebrate the marriage of Anne, Princess Royal and Prince William of Orange. Parnasso in festa had its first performance in London at the King's Theatre on 13 March 1734 and was repeated five times. The operatic entertainment, to an anonymous libretto, was such a success at its London premiere that although it was intended as a one-off production for a royal wedding, Parnasso in festa was revived by Handel in several subsequent seasons.

<i>Wedding anthem for Princess Anne</i>

The Wedding anthem for Princess Anne, HWV 262, This is the day which the Lord hath made, is an anthem for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra by George Frideric Handel. It was written for the wedding of Anne, Princess Royal and Prince William of Orange and was first performed during their marriage at the French Chapel in St James's Palace, London, on 14 March 1734. The music is set to English texts chosen from the biblical books of Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus.

Diana Vico Italian opera singer

Diana Vico was an 18th-century Italian contralto who had an active performance career in Europe from 1707 through 1732. Performing primarily in operas, she sang in opera houses in Italy, Germany, and England. She specialized in portraying male characters on stage, and appeared in the world premieres of operas by prominent composers of the Baroque period, including works by Antonio Vivaldi and George Frideric Handel among others.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.