Music Notes

Composers and Compositions

John Blow (1649 – 1708) was an English composer and organist. His pupils included William Croft and Henry Purcell. In 1673 he was made a gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Blow, who by 1678 was a doctor of music, was named in 1685 one of the private musicians of James II. Between 1680 and 1687 he wrote his only stage composition of which any record survives, the Masque for the entertainment of the King, Venus and Adonis. In 1687 he became master of the choir of St Paul's Cathedral; in 1695 he was elected organist of St Margaret's, Westminster, and is said to have resumed his post as organist of Westminster Abbey, from which in 1680 he had retired or been dismissed to make way for Purcell. In 1699 he was appointed to the newly created post of Composer to the Chapel Royal. The eminent 18th century music historian Dr. Charles Burney attacked Blow posthumously, and with all the venom a printed page could produce, for such "crudities" and "bestialilities" as unprepared and improperly resolved dissonances, improper voice-leading and parallel movement of perfect intervals, and use of the augmented triad. These features, common to much Restoration music, would be unlikely to elicit such strong objection today. Blow's language, and that of his contemporaries, represents a crossroads of sorts, where the last flowering of the great English polyphonic tradition meets the emerging baroques style.

William Byrd (c. 1540-1623) must have greatly impressed Elizabeth I: not only was he permitted to write music appropriate to Roman Catholic worship—which had recently been made illegal in England as part of the progress of the Reformation—he was also allowed, along with his friend and colleague Thomas Tallis, to publish it free from persecution. Perhaps Elizabeth recognized him as one of the finest composers England has ever produced and felt that such talent should be allowed to flourish regardless of Royal Policy on political and religious matters. As it was, Byrd's work was likely to have been performed in secret, for example in the great houses of the gentry who still maintained a secret Catholic faith.

Johann Eccard (1553-1611), was born at Mühlhausen, Thuringia, Germany. At the age of eighteen he went to Munich, where he became the pupil of Orlando di Lasso. In his company, Eccard is said to have visited Paris, but in 1574, he was again at Mühlhausen, where he lived for four years. There, together with Johann von Burgk, he edited his first collection of sacred songs, called Crepundia sacra Helmboldi (1577). Soon afterwards he secured an appointment as musician in the house of Jacob Fugger, an Augsburg banker. In 1583 he became assistant conductor, and in 1599 conductor at Königsberg to Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, the administrator of the Duchy of Prussia. In 1608 he was appointed by Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, as the principal conductor in Berlin. Eccard's works consist exclusively of vocal compositions, such as songs, sacred cantatas and chorales for four or five, and sometimes for seven, eight, or even nine voices. Their polyphonic structure is a marvel of art and still garners the admiration of musicians. His setting of Martin Luther's words Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) is still regarded by the Germans as their representative national hymn.

A Cistercian monk, Jacob Handl (1550-1591) was Slovenian by birth, studied under the eminent Netherlands composer Philippe de Monte, and led a distinguished, if brief, career as Kantor at St. Janna Brzehu in Prague. He was a member of the Viennese court chapel in 1574, and was choirmaster to the bishop of Olomouc, Moravia between 1579 and 1585. Like his contemporaries Palestrina and Lassus, he wrote many masses and motets. His Opus musicum (Prague, 1586-91) contains over 450 motets that are settings of the Proper texts of the liturgical year. His wide-ranging, eclectic style blended archaism and modernity. He rarely used the cantus firmus technique, preferring the then-new Venetian polychoral manner, yet he was equally conversant with earlier imitative techniques. Some of his astonishing chromatic transitions foreshadowed the breakup of modality.

Giovanni Peirluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), his name derived from his probable place of birth, was one of the principal composers of the late 16th century. Palestrina came of age as a musician under the influence of the northern European style of polyphony, which owed its dominance in Italy primarily to two influential Franco-Flemish composers, Guillaume Dufay and Josquin des Prez, who had spent significant portions of their careers there. His first published compositions, a book of Masses, had made so favorable an impression with Pope Julius III (previously the Bishop of Palestrina) that he appointed Palestrina musical director of the Julian Chapel. This was the first book of Masses by a native composer: in the Italian states of his day, most composers of sacred music were from the Low Countries, France, Portugal, or Spain. In fact the book was modeled on one by Cristóbal de Morales: the woodcut in the front is almost an exact copy of the one from the book by the Spanish composer. The decade of the 1570s was difficult for him personally: he lost his brother, two of his sons, and his wife in three separate outbreaks of the plague (1572, 1575, and 1580, respectively). He seems to have considered becoming a priest at this time, but instead he remarried, this time to a wealthy widow. This finally gave him financial independence (he was not well paid as a choirmaster) and he was able to compose prolifically until his death.

Elizabeth Poston (1905–1987) was an English composer, pianist, and writer. She studied at Queen Margaret's School, York and then the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied with both Peter Warlock and Ralph Vaughan Williams. She won a prize from the RAM for her violin sonata, which was subsequently broadcast by the BBC. Poston was the president of the Society of Women Musicians from 1955–1961, and composed scores for radio and television productions, over 40 in radio alone, and collaborated with writers such as C. S. Lewis and Dylan Thomas. Poston was quite an unusual woman. She lived all her life in a large, rambling house, which E. M. Forster used for his novel, Howard's End. (In 1970 she wrote the score for the televised adaptation of the book.) Forster was a friend and frequent visitor. As she made little money out of music, he bailed her out—numerous times—with gifts of "podge"! By the time of her death, the house hadn't changed for at least 60 years. She reportedly had stacks of papers and clutter, everywhere, and a beautiful dolls' house, which was at least 125 years old. She kept bees and loved animals—she even kept a donkey in a paddock. Her mother was around for most of her life, living to be 103. Her famous and beautiful house, once in the country, found itself in the middle of a vast development of mass-produced houses. They headed up the country lanes in droves, like a horrible alien slime. She couldn't bear to leave. She couldn't bear to stay. So she died at her home, days before the developers began their final assault. Her most famous work, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, is a poem purportedly written by an unknown New Englander in the 1700s. The poem may be an allusion to the description of an apple tree in Song of Songs 2:3.

Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) was a gifted Spanish composer of the late Renaissance. He was the most famous composer of the 16th century in Spain, and is considered by many to be second only to Palestrina as a composer of sacred polyphony at the time. He was born in Avila, likely studying with Escobedo at Segovia early in his life. He is known to have gone to Rome around 1564 where he may have studied with Palestrina though the evidence is circumstantial—certainly he was influenced by the Italian master's style. In 1575, after a period of service at the monastery as maestro di cappella, he was ordained a priest. He did not stay in Italy, however; in 1586 Victoria returned to Spain, this time in the service of Empress Maria, who was entering the convent of Descalzas Reales in Madrid. Victoria remained at the convent until the end of his life, performing several roles—priest, composer, director of the choir, and organist.