Samuel Thomas Champnes

Last updated February 20, 2019

Samuel Thomas Champnes (died 1803) was the first person to sing "Heart of Oak" in Harlequin's Invasion at the Garrick Theatre in Drury lane. A former Westminster Chorister, probably owing to his maternal grandfather being John Weldon an apprentice to Purcell and a Royal Organist at St George's Chapel. (This connection was made using John's will.) Champnes went on to be one of Handel's soloists.

"Heart of Oak" is the official march of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. It is also the official march of several Commonwealth navies including the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal New Zealand Navy. It was also the official march of the Royal Australian Navy, but has now been replaced by the new march, "Royal Australian Navy."

The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, named after the stage actor David Garrick. It opened in 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero, and another Pinero play, The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith, was an early success at the theatre. In its early years, the Garrick appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama. The theatre later became associated with comedies, including No Sex Please, We're British, which played for four years from 1982 to 1986.

John Weldon was an English composer.

According to Peter Ward Jones, music librarian of the Bodleian Library, "Champness had sung in Handel performances as a boy treble in the 1740s (according to the article on him in the Biographical Dictionary of Actors^[1] ), and Handel had apparently written several arias for the part of the young Benjamin in his oratorio Joseph and his Brethren for Champness in 1744, and he may well have sung in the choruses of Messiah as a boy."

Joseph is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel completed in the summer of 1743. Joseph is composed to an English language libretto by the Rev.James Miller, based on Apostolo Zeno's Italian language libretto for Giuseppe, an oratorio by Antonio Caldara. It received its premiere performance that following Lenten season on 2 March 1744 at the Covent Garden Theatre.

Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible, and from the Coverdale Psalter, the version of the Psalms included with the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and received its London premiere nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music.

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References

↑ Highfill, Philip H.; Burnim, Kalman A.; Langhans, Edward A. (1975). A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 3, Cabanel to Cory: Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 149–151. ISBN 978-0-8093-0692-3.

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[1] Highfill, Philip H.; Burnim, Kalman A.; Langhans, Edward A. (1975). A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 3, Cabanel to Cory: Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 149–151. ISBN 978-0-8093-0692-3.