For Lady Day Today: Purcell's "The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation"

Henry Purcell set Nahum Tate's poem, "The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation" as an ode for soprano and continuo published in his Harmonia Sacra. It depicts Mary's questions about what has happened to Jesus in Jerusalem when she and Joseph realize He is missing. (Luke 2: 41-52)

The inspiration for the text could come from the last verses of that passage: "Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men."

Here's a performance of Frederica von Stade and Martin Katz on piano in a 1978/79 recital album.

And here's a performance in the continuo and organ setting.

The Blessed Virgin Mary fears that something terrible has happened--as terrible as the Slaughter of the Innocents in Bethlehem 12 years before and the dangers even of the Flight into Egypt. They went through all that to lose Him in Jerusalem? She calls on the Archangel of the Annunciation, Saint Gabriel, to comfort her.

Tell me, some pitying angel tell, quickly say,
Where does my soul's sweet darling stay?
In tiger's, or more cruel Herod's way?
O! rather let his little footsteps press
Unregarded through the wilderness,
Where milder savages resort:
The desert's safer than a tyrant's court.
Why, fairest object of my love,
Why dost thou from my longing eyes remove?
Was it a waking dream that did foretell
Thy wondrous birth? no vision from above?
Where's Gabriel now that visited my cell?
I call Gabriel, he comes not; flatt'ring hopes, farewell.

Me Judah's daughters once caress'd,
Call'd me of mothers the most bless'd;
Now fatal change of mothers most distress'd.
How shall my soul its motions guide,
How shall I stem various tide,
Whilst faith and doubt* my lab'ring thoughts divide?
For whilst of thy dear sight beguil'd,
I trust the God, but oh!
I fear the child.

*Saint John Henry Newman would prefer the term "difficulty" as Mary wonders why this has happened (as in "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.")

I wonder if Gerard Manley Hopkins ever heard a performance of this piece? He certainly admired ("the divine genius") Purcell!

It's a great source of meditation to remember: the Loss of Jesus in Jerusalem is one of the Seven Sorrows of Mary (the third) and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple is one of the Five Joyful Mysteries (the fifth)!

Image Source (Public Domain): Jesus Found in the Temple (Jesus retrouvé dans le temple) by James Tissot, 19th ct. (Brooklyn Museum, New York)

Hopkins Praises Purcell

Henry Purcell died on November 21, 1695. Naxos, which has a CD of The Best of Purcell, sums 
up his achievement here:

Henry Purcell was one of the greatest English composers, flourishing in the period that followed the restoration of the monarchy after the Puritan Commonwealth period. He spent much of his short life in the service of the Chapel Royal as a composer, organist and singer. With considerable gifts as a composer, he wrote extensively for the stage (particularly in a hybrid musico-dramatic form of the time), for the church, and for popular entertainment. He was a master of English word-setting and of contemporary compositional techniques for instruments and voices. He died in 1695, a year after composing funeral music for Queen Mary.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ praised Purcell in verse:

The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell and praises him that, whereas other musicians have given utterance to the moods of man’s mind, he has, beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and species of man as created both in him and in all men generally. 

HAVE, fair fallen, O fair, fair have fallen, so dear 
To me, so arch-especial a spirit as heaves in Henry Purcell, 
An age is now since passed, since parted; with the reversal 
Of the outward sentence low lays him, listed to a heresy, here. 

Not mood in him nor meaning, proud fire or sacred fear, 
Or love or pity or all that sweet notes not his might nursle: 
It is the forgèd feature finds me; it is the rehearsal 
Of own, of abrupt self there so thrusts on, so throngs the ear. 

Let him Oh! with his air of angels then lift me, lay me! only I’ll 
Have an eye to the sakes of him, quaint moonmarks, to his pelted plumage under 
Wings: so some great stormfowl, whenever he has walked his while 

The thunder-purple seabeach plumèd purple-of-thunder, 
If a wuthering of his palmy snow-pinions scatter a colossal smile 
Off him, but meaning motion fans fresh our wits with wonder.

Hear a sample of Purcell's Music for Queen Mary's Funeral here.

September Martyrs: Blessed William Way

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: Today's martyr, Blessed William Way (Alias MAY, alias FLOWER), was born in Exeter Diocese (Challoner says in Cornwall, but earlier authorities say in Devonshire); hanged, [disem]bowelled, and quartered at Kingston-on-Thames, 23 September, 1588. He is frequently confused with the martyred layman Richard Flower, alias Lloyd, who suffered at Tyburn, 30 September, 1588 (as to whom see RICHARD LEIGH), with the priest William Wiggs, alias Way, M.A., a notable prisoner at Wisbech, and with William Wyggs, M.A., of New College, Oxford. Our martyrWilliam Way received the first tonsure in the Cathedral of Reims from the Cardinal of Guise on 31 March, 1584, and was ordained subdeacon, 22 March, deacon 5 April, and priest 18 September, 1586, at Laon, probably byBishop Valentine Douglas, O.S.B. He set out for England 9 December, 1586, and in June 1587, had been committed to the Clink. He was indicted at Newgate in September, 1588, merely for being a priest. He declined to be tried by a secular judge, whereupon the Bishop of London was sent for; but the martyr, refusing to acknowledge him as a bishop or the queen as head of the Church, was immediately condemned. He was much given to abstinence and austerity. When he was not among the first of those to be tried at the Sessions in August, he wept and, fearing he had offended God, went at once to confession, "but when he himself was sent for, he had so much joy that he seemed past himself".

I presume to that seem "past himself" is like being "beside himself": almost out of his senses from a strong emotion, in his case, joy. Since Father Way was known for his "abstinence and austerity", his display of emotion seemed unlike his usual comportment. This expression evidently comes from William Caxton's translation of a French version of the story of Aeneas: Dido is “hors de soi” when she hears that Aeneas has left her. Henry Purcell tells the story of Dido and Aeneas in his opera. Tatiana Troyanas sings her aria, beside herself with grief on the pyre, whose fires Aeneas will see:

Recitative:

Thy hand, Belinda, darkness shades me,

On thy bosom let me rest,

More I would, but Death invades me;

Death is now a welcome guest.

Aria:

When I am laid, am laid in earth, 

May my wrongs create

No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;

Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

Remember me, but ah! forget my fate

We remember both Blessed William Way and his fate (his martyrdom). He was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.

Image: Aeneid, Book IV, Death of Dido. From the Vergilius Vaticanus (Vatican Library, Cod. Vat. lat. 3225).

Purcell and Cowley

We purchased this album of Purcell "catch songs", a cantata set to a poem by Abraham Cowley, and an ode to Saint Cecilia at one of the used record stores in Wichita. The LP was from the Musical Heritage Society, the budget mail-order record company, and the music is performed by The Deller Consort. The Musical Heritage Society licensed the material from Harmonia Mundi, which released the recording as a CD. The theme of the album is that composers like Purcell had to be active both in the secular and the sacred world--the "ale-house and the Chapel Royal, as well as the playhouse and the church."

The songs on A side of the LP combine "strict counterpoint and scatological verse", according to Denis Stevens' liner notes, while the B side contains the more serious works, including the setting of Cowley's poem:

If ever I more riches did desire

Than cleanliness and quiet do require, 

If e'er Ambition did my fancy cheat, 

With any wish so mean as to be great, 

Continue, Heav'n, still from me to remove 

The humble blessings of that life I love. 

Upon the slipp'ry tops of human state, 

The gilded pinnacles of fate, 

Let others proudly stand, and for awhile 

The giddy danger to beguile, 

With joy and with disdain look down on all, 

Till their heads turn, and down they fall. 

Me, O ye Gods, on earth, or else so near, 

That I no fall to earth may fear, 

And, O ye gods, at a good distance seat 

From the long ruins of the great. 

Here wrap'd in the arms of Quiet le me lie; 

Quiet, companion of Obscurity. 

Here let my life with as much silence slide 

As time, that measures it, does glide. 

Nor let the breath of Infamy or Fame 

From town to town echo about my name, 

Nor let my homely death embroider'd be 

With scutcheon or with elegy: 

An old plebeian let me die. 

Alas, all then are such as well as I. 

To him, alas, to him, I fear, 

The face of Death will terrible appear, 

Who in his life flatt'ring his senseless pride 

By being known to all the world beside, 

Does not himself, when he is dying, know, 

Nor what he is, nor whither he's to go.

Abraham Cowley was one of the Metaphysical poets and a friend and admirer of Richard Crashaw. According to this biography:

Poet and essayist Abraham Cowley was born in London, England, in 1618. He displayed early talent as a poet, publishing his first collection of poetry, Poetical Blossoms (1633), at the age of 15. Cowley studied at Cambridge University but was stripped of his Cambridge fellowship during the English Civil War and expelled for refusing to sign the Solemn League and Covenant of 1644. In turn, he accompanied Queen Henrietta Maria to France, where he spent 12 years in exile serving as her secretary. During this time, Cowley completed The Mistress (1647). Arguably his most famous work, the collection exemplifies Cowley’s metaphysical style of love poetry. After the Restoration, Cowley returned to England, where he was reinstated as a Cambridge fellow and earned his MD before finally retiring to the English countryside.

Polk and Carver Deliver Henry Purcell

Music appreciation continues at our house as my husband repaired his Carver receiver and bought some new deeply discounted Polk speakers. We played our new Rachel Podger CD (Guardian Angel) Saturday morning and then Mark wanted to test the system with a vocal CD and I selected this 1995 recording from the late Christopher Hogwood's The Academy of Ancient Music and Sylvia McNair of "The Music of Henry Purcell". The Echoing Air includes the following works:

‘If music be the food of love’
‘To arms, to arms, heroic prince’
‘Tell me, some pitying angel’
‘We come to sing’
‘Oh! Lead me to some peaceful gloom’
‘O solitude’
‘Hark! Hark! The echoing air’
‘Sweeter than Roses’
‘Fairest Isle’
‘She that would gain a faithful lover’
‘Cupid, the slyest rogue alive’
‘I attempt from love’s sickness to fly’
‘Music for a while’
‘The fatal hour comes on apace’
‘Hear, mighty love Plainte'
‘O let me weep’
Chacony in G minor

The fidelity on the Philips CD is excellent of course and we enjoyed the mixture of vocal and instrumental works. McNair has a clear, pure soprano that is well suited to Purcell's music, although I think she sings "The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation", "Tell me, some pitying angel," too placidly and like Frederica von Stade's first song recital version on the Sony label from 1978 for its greater expression and urgency. Mark was happy with the performance of the Carver receiver and the Polk speakers--the latter still need more breaking in: then we'll play Bruckner and Mahler!!

The Unknown Purcell

Daniel Purcell, who is either Henry Purcell's younger brother or a cousin, died on November 26, 1717. According to this site,

Daniel Purcell (c.1663-1717) was a musician, composer, socialite and punster. He was a child in the choir of the Chapel Royal, organist at Magdalen College, Oxford, and composer-in-residence at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. His output was prolific, consisting of music for some fifty plays, as well as many anthems, cantatas, songs, odes, and instrumental sonatas.

Whilst in Oxford, Daniel Purcell was also a member of an Oxford Music Club, which also counted Richard Goodson, the organist of Christ Church, and James Brydges, Duke of Chandos and later famously patron to Handel, amongst its membership.

Of Daniel's works, it is probably the theatre music which is most of interest, ranging from single songs for sometimes ill-fated productions to whole 'Purcellian' Dramatick Operas such as The Island Princess (Motteux, 1699), and The Grove, or Love's Paradise (Oldmixon, 1700). His cantatas 'after the Italian Manner' (1713) were some of the first examples of their style in the English language, and, whilst he held no official appointment, his composition of odes for Princess (later Queen) Anne, and various other members of the Royal family, show his close connections with court life.

The wikipedia article also cites Purcell's music for Choral Evensong as being the most performed of his music today. Here is a performance of his Magnificat, by a group called Novi Cantores. Presto Classical offers this CD from Priory which includes his Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from Chicester Cathedral and also have this CD from Chandos (cover pictured above): The Unknown Purcell:

On this recording we have a selection of works for solo harpsichord and for violin and continuo by Daniel Purcell, most of which are premiere recordings. Traditionally, Daniel Purcell has been known primarily as the younger brother of Henry Purcell (though a strong argument can be made that they were cousins), and it has been said that it was from this family connection only that he derived ‘what little reputation which as a musician he possessed’ (Sir John Hawkins). It is not true, however, that Daniel’s legacy was based entirely on the fame of Henry. Daniel lived for over twenty years after Henry’s death in 1695, adopting styles and forms that only became popular in England around 1700, including the da capo aria, the Italianate cantata and – most relevant to this recording – the solo sonata.
 
Nearly all of Daniel Purcell’s surviving solo harpsichord music consists of arrangements, the only clear exception being the short Toccata, a brief essay in the style of the preludes from Henry Purcell’s harpsichord suites. The Suite is a simple but effective arrangement of movements from the composer’s own suite, for four-part strings, for Farquhar’s play The Inconstant. The expressive Rondeau is also likely an arrangement of a piece for four-part strings. The other three harpsichord pieces are simple arrangements of Daniel’s songs, derived from Oxford manuscripts, and reflecting Daniel’s links with the city.

Choral Evensong is part of the "Anglican Patrimony" the Ordinariate brings to the Catholic Church, and this blog has a post that demonstrates even how its celebration is an outreach to those Anglo-Catholics remaining in the Church of England (pray it is not too long before they join the "old true flock of Christ" as Blessed John Henry Newman proclaimed!).

Henry Purcell, RIP

Henry Purcell died on November 21, 1695. The wikipedia article on this great English Baroque composer includes some excerpts from his compositions, while this "Online Gallery" from the British Library features portraits and excerpts. Like the sixteenth composers Tallis and Byrd, Purcell lived through dynastic changes that effected changes in his music style and career.

This biography from The Purcell Society describes some of those changes:

During the 1680s, Purcell was frequently called upon to compose a large-scale ode or ‘welcome song’ to mark a special event in the royal calendar. In 1682, he was appointed as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and, in the following year, his first published collection appeared. This was the Sonnata's of III. Parts, for two violins, bass viol and continuo. His best-known composition, the dramatic entertainment Dido and Aeneas, was also written during the 1680s, though it is not certain when the first performance took place.

In 1689, William and Mary were crowned King and Queen, and there seem to have been fewer opportunities at court for composers than under their predecessors, Charles II and James II. Purcell turned to the theatre, writing four large-scale operatic works between 1690 and 1695, as well as incidental music for numerous plays. He continued to write court odes, however, including one each year between 1689 and 1694 to mark the birthday of Queen Mary. He also composed music for her state funeral, which took place in March 1695. Just a few months later, on 21 November 1695, Purcell himself died.

Since he wrote music both to celebrate her birthday and to commemorate her passing, this recording by the Choir of King's College Cambridge and the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Stephen Cleobury, looks like an interesting collection.

Gerard Manley Hopkins praised Purcell in verse:

The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell and praises him that, whereas other musicians have given utterance to the moods of man’s mind, he has, beyond that, uttered in notes the very make and species of man as created both in him and in all men generally.

HAVE, fair fallen, O fair, fair have fallen, so dear
To me, so arch-especial a spirit as heaves in Henry Purcell,
An age is now since passed, since parted; with the reversal
Of the outward sentence low lays him, listed to a heresy, here.

Not mood in him nor meaning, proud fire or sacred fear,
Or love or pity or all that sweet notes not his might nursle:
It is the forgèd feature finds me; it is the rehearsal
Of own, of abrupt self there so thrusts on, so throngs the ear.

Let him Oh! with his air of angels then lift me, lay me! only I’ll
Have an eye to the sakes of him, quaint moonmarks, to his pelted plumage under
Wings: so some great stormfowl, whenever he has walked his while

The thunder-purple seabeach plumèd purple-of-thunder,
If a wuthering of his palmy snow-pinions scatter a colossal smile
Off him, but meaning motion fans fresh our wits with wonder.

William Boyce and William Byrd

William Boyce, English composer, organist, and editor, was baptized on September 11, 1711. He was the son of a cabinet-maker, born in London on the 7th of February 1710. As a chorister in St. Paul's he received his early musical education from Charles King and Dr. Maurice Greene, and he afterwards studied the theory of music under Dr. Pepusch. In 1734, having become organist of Oxford chapel, Vere Street, Cavendish Square, he set Lord Lansdowne's masque of Peleus and Thetis to music. In 1736 he left Oxford chapel and was appointed organist of St. Michael's church, Cornhill, and in the same year he became composer to the chapel royal, and wrote the music for John Lockman's oratorio David's Lamentation over Saul and Jonathan. In 1737 he was appointed to conduct the meetings of the three choirs of Gloucester, Worcester and Hereford. In 1743 was written the serenata Solomon, in which occurs the favorite song "Softly rise, 0 southern breeze." In 1749 he received the degree of doctor of music from the university of Cambridge, as an acknowledgment of the merit of his setting of the ode performed at the installation of Henry Pelham, duke of Newcastle, as chancellor; and in this year he became organist of All-Hallows the Great and Less, Thames Street. A musical setting to The Chaplet, an entertainment by Moses Mendez, was Boyce's most successful achievement in this year. In 1750 he wrote songs for John Dryden's Secular Masque and in 1751 set another piece (The Shepherd's Lottery) by Mendez. He became master of the king's band in succession to Greene in 1757, and in 1758 he was appointed principal organist to the chapel royal. As an ecclesiastical composer Boyce ranks among the best representatives of the English school. His two church services and his anthems, of which the best specimens are By the Waters of Babylon and 0, Where shall Wisdom be found, are frequently performed. It should also be remembered that he wrote additional accompaniments and choruses for Henry Purcell's Te Deum and Jubilate, which the earlier musician had composed for the St. Cecilia's day of 1694. Boyce did this in his capacity of conductor at the annual festivals of the Sons of the Clergy at St. Paul's cathedral, an office which he had taken in succession to Greene. His twelve trios for two violins and a bass were long popular. One of his most valuable services to musical art was his publication in three volumes quarto of a work on Cathedral Music. The collection had been begun by Greene, but it was mainly the work of Boyce. The first volume appeared in 1760 and the last in 1778. On the 7th of February 1779 Boyce died from an attack of gout. He was buried under the dome of St. Paul's cathedral.

As editor of Cathedral Music, Boyce commented on various English composers of the past, including one of my favorites, William Byrd:
 
William Bird, was admitted a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1569. He, in conjunction with Thomas Tallis, published in 1575 a collection of their own compositions in Latin, entitled, Sacred Songs: and in the Years 1589, 1591, and 1605, he printed three other collections of his own Productions in the same Language, all of which had the same Title with the first conjoint Publication.

His works were, in his own time, in great Repute, both at Home and Abroad, and are still held in general Estimation: His Canon of Non nobis Domine, will, in particular, remain a perpetual Monument to his Memory.--- He died in 1623.

Notice that there is no mention of William Byrd's religion or that the "Sacred Songs" published in 1605 were actually the Gradualia (volume 1) which comprises "many short pieces of liturgical music, set in verse sections, which can be combined in various ways to form liturgically accurate Propers cycles for every significant feast and votive mass of the Roman Catholic Rite." But it's due to William Boyce's inclusion and editing of William Byrd's music that it has been part of the Anglican musical patrimony. William Boyce's most popular works now are his Eight Symphonies.