French Influence on Pelham Humfrey’s Instrumental Verse Anthems
Laura Anderson
Introduction
Taking Pelham Humfrey’s (1647–74) trip to the French court (1664–67) as my
starting point, I will examine the early development of the instrumental verse anthem
in Restoration England and will trace aspects of this genre that may have been
borrowed from or influenced by French court music. This topic raises questions
concerning influence in general and particularly degrees of influence. Moreover, what
is especially interesting about this topic revolves around influence that appears on the
surface to be obvious; but deeper examination reveals that the matter is not as
straightforward as English empirical musicology has tended to assume.
This period of French music and its role at the court is very interesting since it is
closely intertwined with the concept of monarchy. The French conception of
monarchy dominated Europe at this time and French was the language of courtesy.1
During the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), arguably the apogee of the French
monarchy, music had a central function in the glorification of the monarch, the
centralised government, and stability at the court. The poet Rault de Rouën wrote in
the July 1680 issue of Extraordinaire du Mercure Galant:
In creating musical harmony, the composer … is providing the basis of government. This
truth, so clearly perceived and explained by the ancient philosophers and churchmen, has been
recognized by Louis XIV.2
As Robert M. Isherwood describes, Louis XIV aimed to establish France’s artistic
supremacy in Europe and to set the standard to which other courts would aspire.3
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83) was the King’s Controller-General and his primary
1
Henry Raynor, Music in England (London: Robert Hale Ltd, 1980), 92.
Robert M. Isherwood, Music in the Service of the King: France in the Seventeenth Century (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1973), 38.
3
Robert M. Isherwood, ‘The Centralisation of Music in the Reign of Louis XIV’ in French Historical
Studies 6 (Autumn 1969),156.
2
25
objective was to develop native talent in order to make France so superior in the arts
that other countries would send their artists to study French models.4 Jean-Baptiste
Lully (1632–87) entered the service of Louis XIV in 1651 and became known as both
a dancer and composer at the court. At the beginning of Louis’s personal reign, on 16
May 1661, he granted Lully the highest office to which he could aspire, that of
surintendant de la musique de la chambre du roi. Lully soon had a monopoly on
French music at Louis’s court and his role in the development of French opera, ballet,
and motet is of paramount importance. Bernard Champignelle describes how
numerous composers, including Georg Muffat (1653–1704), Johann Caspar Ferdinand
Fischer (d. 1746) and Humfrey, were members of ‘une école lullyiste’ and would go
on to further the spread of Lully’s musical style.5 French taste and characteristics
became fashionable throughout Europe and in Britain there was a strong trend of
following French fashion during the reigns of both Charles I and II. Many foreign
musicians were employed at the court of the former, including the lutenist Jacques
Gautier, while Frenchmen almost exclusively staffed Henrietta Maria’s chapel, his
consort, who was herself French.6
Charles II (1630–85), coming to the English throne in 1660, had spent several years at
the French court during his exile and was strongly affected by the customs and culture
that he encountered there. He would have seen extravagant musical performances in
both the theatre and the Royal Chapel: performances that inspired him with ideas for
his own court. However, the English system never became as centralised as its French
counterpart and Philippe Oboussier believes that as a result English music offers more
variety than French music.7
During the Restoration, Charles sent many artists, including Humfrey, to France so
that he could better emulate the French court in England. In spite of the King’s
efforts, the Baroque style did not suddenly arrive in Britain. Manfred F. Bukofzer
4
Ibid, 158.
Bernard Champignelle, ‘L’influence de Lully hors de France’ in Revue musicale 398–99 (1987), 68–
71.
6
Michael Claude Vaughn, ‘The Restoration Chapel Royal: A confluence of traditions and styles’
(Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1996), 328.
7
Philippe Oboussier, ‘Le grand motet et le verse anthem: Influences et rapports’ in Le grand motet
français (Paris: University of Paris, Sorbonne, 1987), 218.
5
26
writes that this is typical of a country that imported the Baroque style from without.8
We can be certain, however, that there was significant contact between the French and
English styles. Muffat, in the preface to his Florilegium Secundum (1698), stated that
the English practised Lully’s style. Muffat was very familiar with Lully’s music
having studied with him between 1663 and 1669 and Peter Dennison suggests that he
may have heard of English practice from English visitors to Paris during these years.9
As in France, the role of music in promotion of the monarchy was well established in
England. Church music retained a close association with the cult of the monarch and
the verse anthems performed at thanksgiving and coronation ceremonies played an
important role in projecting the royalist ideology.10 Humfrey would have realised the
potential power of music in this respect when he visited France in the process of
centralising its political and cultural system. The establishment of the Académie
royale de musique, which Isherwood defines as the culmination of this centralisation
of the arts, took place in 1669, only two years after Humfrey returned home.11
Humfrey is a particularly interesting composer to look at in a study tracing French
influence on the English style. He was composing from an early age at the English
court (Ian Cheeverton notes that five texts set by him are contained in the Clifford’s
1664 word book); he travelled in both France and Italy where he encountered
continental music and continued working on his own compositions; and he composed
the majority of his surviving compositions when he returned home.12 He is very
suitable for a consideration of the degree of influence of continental music since we
have samples of his compositions from both before and after his travels abroad.
Dennison has written that ‘the most pervasively influential components’ of the French
operas and ballets which were ‘imitated throughout Europe for at least a century, were
their instrumental movements, ouvertures, ritournelles, and dances’.13 In this
8
Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (London: Dent, 1948), 180.
Peter Dennison, Pelham Humfrey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 2–3.
10
Alexander H. Shapiro, ‘Drama of an Infinitely Superior Nature: Handel’s Early English Oratorios
and the Religious Sublime’ in Music and Letters 74 (May 1993), 233.
11
Isherwood, ‘The Centralisation of Music in the Reign of Louis XIV’, 159.
12
Ian Cheeverton, ‘English Church Music of the Early Restoration’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Cardiff,
1984), 657.
13
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 19.
9
27
assessment of French influence on Humfrey’s music, I will largely focus my attention
on comparisons between the instrumental symphonies and ritornellos of Humfrey’s
anthems and the overtures to Lully’s ballets and his Miserere Mei Deus (1664).
Naturally, it makes sense to examine the ballets that Humfrey is most likely to have
encountered on his trip and so I have selected the following for my study: Le Temps
(1654), Les Plaisirs (1655), L’Amour Malade (1657), Les Saisons (1661), Les Amours
déguisés (1664) and Les Muses (1666). The first three all had their premières at the
Louvre: Le Temps was premiered on the 3rd December 1654; Les Plaisirs on 4th
February 1655; and L’Amour Malade on 17th January 1657. The Ballet des Saisons
was first performed at the Royal Chapel of Fontainebleau on the 26th July 1661 and
four subsequent performances were given there during the rest of the summer. Les
Amours déguisés formed part of the Carnival season of 1664 and opened at the theatre
of the Palais Royal on 13th February. It had five subsequent performances but was not
performed again either fully or partially as insertions into any of Lully’s later works.14
In the period prior to its première the court had received Charles II and his queen. Les
Muses was premiered at St Germain en Laye on 2nd December 1666. Lully sometimes
incorporated sections from his ballets into the performances of later works and
numbers from the ballets were often republished in contemporary musical
anthologies. For example, the ‘Récit champêtre’ and the ‘Récit de Junon’ from Les
Amours Déguisés were printed by Ballard in an anthology of Airs à deux parties in
1665.15 Bearing these facts and the above dates in mind, these are the compositions
that Humfrey is most likely to have encountered in France. I hope to assess the degree
of influence of these ballets and the grand motet on Humfrey’s anthems. In doing this
it will be important to bear in mind the earlier English influences of Henry Cooke
(c.1616–72) and Matthew Locke (c.1621–77).
Only two Humfrey autographs exist in two seventeenth-century manuscripts. A single
anthem is contained in the Birmingham, Barber Institute, MS 5001, and the
Magnificat and Nomine Domini from the E minor Service are found in the Cambridge,
14
Rebecca Harris-Warrick, ‘Introduction to Les Amours déguisés’ in Rebecca Harris-Warrick, ed.,
Oeuvres Complètes: Ballet des Saisons, Les Amours déguisés, Ballet royal de Flore (Hindesheim:
Georg Olms Verlag, 2001), xxviii.
15
Rebecca Harris-Warrick, ‘Les Amours déguisés: Source Discussion’ in Rebecca Harris-Warrick ed.,
Oeuvres Complètes: Ballet des Saisons, Les Amours déguisés, Ballet royal de Flore (Hindesheim:
Georg Olms Verlag, 2001), 299.
28
Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 152. In the compilation of the Musica Britannica edition of
Humfrey’s anthems, Dennison relied on several contemporary sources, such as the
Oxford, Christ Church, MS 628 (c.1680). In order to discuss both Humfrey’s and
Locke’s music I will rely on the Musica Britannica editions. As a printed anthology
of Cooke’s music is not currently in existence I will study his work in the
Birmingham, Barber Institute, MS 5001. In my study of Lully’s music I will refer to
the 1931 Revue Musicale edition of Miserere Mei Deus edited by Felix Raugel; the
1931 Revue Musicale edition of Le Ballet du Temps, Le Ballet des Plaisirs, Le Ballet
de L’Amour Malade edited by Henry Prunières; the 1978 edition of Le Ballet des
Muses: for Baroque Ensemble edited by Karel Husa; and the 2001 edition of Le Ballet
des Saisons and Le Ballet des Amours déguisés edited by Rebecca Harris-Warrick.
Charles II, the Instrumental Verse Anthem, and a taste for French style
If we are to understand why this period was so ripe for innovations in musical style it
is important to describe briefly the role of music in Restoration England. As James
Day states, the establishment of the Puritan Commonwealth that directly preceded the
Restoration led to a change in direction of English musical life and major alterations
in the canon of religious music.16 In 1643 the Parliament passed a bill that removed
vicars choral and choristers from the Church of England and choir schools were
abolished.17 As Day writes, the Puritans did not object to music, in fact secular music
flourished during the Commonwealth, but they seem to have been frightened of the
powerful effect that it might have in certain contexts.18 The musical libraries of many
cathedrals and churches were destroyed during Cromwell’s Protectorate and several
organs were dismantled.
When the Restoration began there were further musical changes. The first emergence
of the new style did not bring about a complete departure from past traditions and old
and new repertory was heard side by side during a transitional period. Nevertheless,
the years of musical inactivity brought about by the Commonwealth hastened the
decline of older styles and encouraged new ones to take off during the Restoration.19
16
James Day, ‘Englishness’ in Music: from Elizabethan times to Elgar, Tippett and Britten (London:
Thames Publishing, 1999), 40.
17
Ian Spink, Restoration Cathedral Music: 1660–1714 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 3.
18
Day, ‘Englishness’ in Music: from Elizabethan times to Elgar, Tippett and Britten, 46.
19
Vaughn, ‘The Restoration Chapel Royal: A confluence of traditions and styles’, 151.
29
The Church of England was reinstated as the state church and choir schools were reestablished. As the monarch was head of the state church, the institution aimed to
reflect the preferences of the King and Charles’s preferences were strongly influenced
by his exile in France.
Sixteen-year-old Charles had left England in 1646 and joined his mother Henrietta
Maria at the French court.20 Day believes that it was here that the future King’s
musical tastes were formed. He was not fond of the solemn music enjoyed by Charles
I and Cromwell; he preferred light, dance-like music with rhythms to which he could
tap his feet.21 Roger North (1653–1734) wrote:
during the first years of Charles II all musick affected by the beau-mond run in the French
way … King Charles II was a professed lover of musick, but of this kind onely … 22
Bukofzer writes that Charles absorbed the light style of French music but not the
pompous manner that came to fruition after Humfrey’s departure from France.23
However, Charles did not have a lot of money to support the arts, and although he
attempted a refurbishment of the musical establishment in French style, he could not
afford a royal opera or theatre. Public concerts flourished but as they were too
expensive for the majority of the population many people encountered modern music
through the Church. Raynor asserts that because of this combination of factors only
the reconstituted Chapel Royal directly reflected Charles’s musical taste.24
Before the Civil War the King’s wind musicians, who were not part of the regular
church corps, had attended the Chapel by roster and this arrangement continued in the
early years of the Restoration.25 However, an important change took place when
Charles established a group in imitation of Louis’s Vingt-quatre violins du roi. Spink
writes that the King’s desire to introduce string sections into the anthem was
influenced by the fact that he probably heard motets by Jean Veillot, appointed Louis
20
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 1.
Day, ‘Englishness’ in Music: from Elizabethan times to Elgar, Tippett and Britten, 48.
22
John Wilson (ed.), Roger North on Music: Being a Selection from his Essays Written during the
Years c.1695–1728 (London: Novello and Company, 1959), 350.
23
Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era, 195.
24
Raynor, Music in England, 95.
25
Spink, Restoration Cathedral Music: 1660–1714, 102.
21
30
XIV’s sous-maître in 1643, performed with strings in the Royal Chapel, or the early
grand motets by Henri Du Mont (1610–84) while at the French court.26 From 1662 to
1688 the violins played regularly in the Chapel Royal, where they introduced
symphonies to open the anthems and ritornellos between the verses.27 Bukofzer
reports John Evelyn’s (1620–1706) shock at the ritornellos: ‘… between every pause
after the French fantastical light way, better suiting a tavern or playhouse than a
church’. 28
Charles sent John Banister (c.1624–79) and later Humfrey to France and he appointed
Louis Grabu (fl 1665–94), who had trained in France, as ‘Master of the King’s
Musick’ in 1665. Court dancing masters were traditionally French and during the
Restoration Jeremy Gohory held the position. In April 1669 Samuel Pepys (1633–
1733) described ‘a Frenchman that did heretofore teach the King and all the King’s
children’.29 In 1671, Charles II induced the actor Thomas Betterton (c.1635–1710) to
visit Paris and study the works of Lully.30 Clearly, Charles’s taste for all things French
extended throughout his reign and, ironically, Humfrey died on 14 July 1674
following a weekend of French entertainments.31
By 1600 the anthem had become the principal musical form of English sacred choral
music, apart from settings of the service proper. The post-Restoration symphony
anthem alternates verses for solo voice accompanied by instruments with sections for
the full choir and instrumental ritornellos. As Dennison states, a list of services and
anthems transcribed into the Chapel Royal part books between 1670 and 1676
confirms the predominance of the new style in the second decade of the Restoration
during the successive Masterships of Cooke, Humfrey and John Blow (1649–1708).32
The alternation of solo sections, choruses and instrumental ritornellos resulted in the
development of a very Baroque form and the structure was described by Day as more
‘Frenchified’ than ever before.33
26
Ibid, 108.
Peter Le Huray and John Harper, ‘Anthem’ in Stanley Sadie, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians 1 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 722.
28
Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era, 199.
29
Vaughn, ‘The Restoration Chapel Royal: A confluence of traditions and styles’, 328.
30
Raynor, Music in England, 101.
31
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 9.
32
Ibid, 4–5.
33
Day, ‘Englishness’ in Music: from Elizabethan times to Elgar, Tippett and Britten, 48.
27
31
During Cooke’s Mastership of the Boys in the Chapel Royal he recruited young
singers including Humfrey and Blow as well as adult singers from various cathedrals
including St. Paul’s, because at the Restoration only five adult members of the
original Chapel Royal choir survived.34 Both Peter Le Huray and John Harper note
that, although at the beginning of the Restoration a great deal of pre-Restoration
music was being used for the daily repertory, Cooke and Locke were writing anthems
in a new style that would be heard when the King was present.35 Thomas Tudway
(c.1650–1726), who had been a boy in the chapel during these early years, noted some
of these changes brought about by the King’s attendance:
His Majesty, being a brisk and airy Prince, comeing to the Throne in the flow’r and vigour of
his age, was soon, if I may say so, tyr’d with the grave and solemn way, and ordered the
Composers of this Chappell to add symphonies, etc., with Instruments to their Anthems, and
thereupon established a select number of his private music to play the Symphonies and
Ritornellos which he had appointed.36
The new works were also characterised by a great deal of chordal writing, and a
harmonic style that was far more modern than those of the pre-Restoration anthems.
The King was very encouraging towards the young composers, recognising that they
were central to the reestablishment of the Chapel Royal and that they might introduce
a new musical style that would replace the music books that had been destroyed and
also celebrate the occasions on which he attended service in his chapel.37 Tudway
described the encouragement provided by the King:
Some of the forwardest, & brightest Children of the Chappell, as Mr. Humfreys, Mr. Blow,
&c, began to be Masters of a faculty of Composing; This his Majesty greatly encourag’d by
indulging their youthfull fancys, so that ev’ry Month at least, & afterwards oft’ner, they
produc’d something New, of this Kind; In a few years more, several others, Educated in the
34
Raynor, Music in England, 96.
Le Huray and Harper, ‘Anthem’, 721.
36
Raynor, Music in England, 97.
37
Ibid, 97.
35
32
Chappell, produc’d their Compositions in this style, for otherwise, it was in vain to hope to
please his Majesty.38
A well-known example of these ‘youthfull fancys’ is the ‘Club Anthem’, I will always
give thanks, composed by Humfrey, along with Blow and William Turner (1651–
1740), when they were choristers. The majority of Humfrey’s verse anthems, which
were composed when he returned from his travels, are for three to five vocal soloists,
SATB chorus and string ensemble (usually two violins, a viola and a continuo group).
Humfrey was part of the first generation of choristers and composers at the Chapel
Royal after the Restoration and he remained a chorister until Christmas 1664. He
seems to have been a precocious child and he displayed compositional talent at an
early age. Pepys described a good anthem by one of Captain Cooke’s boys that was
sung after the sermon on 22 November 1663. From the description that he gives of the
psalm, Dennison believes that it must be Humfrey’s Have mercy upon me O God.39
By the end of 1664 he had been paid £200, and according to Edward Francis Rimbault
(1816–76), further funds were provided in 1665 to ‘defray the charge of his journey
into France and Italy’.40 We cannot be certain where he went and Dennison states that
the music composed after his return provides our only direct evidence that he must
have been sent to France and Italy to absorb the continental styles for two and a half
years.41 In March 1666, during his time abroad, Humfrey was appointed a musician of
the King’s private chamber music. In January of 1667 he became a Gentleman of the
Chapel Royal and he returned to England in October of that year. On 14 July 1672 he
succeeded Cooke as Master of the Children and it seems likely that in this role, he
would have become Henry Purcell’s (1659–95) teacher. He died only two years later.
His output comprises eighteen verse anthems, sixteen of which include strings, and a
Service in E minor. There has been some controversy about the authenticity of some
of these anthems. For example, Dennison omitted O praise God in his holiness from
his Musica Britannica edition of Humfrey’s anthems and Don Franklin raised
38
Thomas Tudway, Prefaces to Thomas Tudway’s Services and Anthems (1715–20) II (London:
British Library, Harleain MSS 7337–42).
39
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 6.
40
Edward Francis Rimbault, The Old Cheque-Book or Book of Remembrance of the Chapel Royal from
1561 to 1744 (London: Camden Society, 1872), 213.
41
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 6.
33
questions about the first version of Have mercy upon me O God as well as Hear my
prayer O God.
It is inevitable that Humfrey would have encountered Lully’s music on his trip and
that as a young composer sent to France by a king who actively encouraged the
cultivation of French style he would have been influenced by it. Musicology has
tended to be less well equipped to discuss influence than has other fields such as
literature; it useful instead to draw from literary criticism, and most notably Harold
Bloom’s seminal text, The Anxiety of Influence.42 Although Bloom is primarily
concerned with post-Enlightenment poetry, many of his ideas, including the
revisionary ratios undertaken by ‘the strong poet’ in the creation of a new work, are
applicable to the compositional process in music.43 His concepts of influence are
rooted in the Enlightenment concepts of the canon and of ‘great’ art. In that respect at
least, they are anachronistic for any consideration of seventeenth-century music.
However, neither critical musicology nor historical musicology has been able to
produce a theory of influence that is obviously better in dealing with the relationship
between an artist’s work and that of his or her predecessors and contemporaries. It
must be acknowledged that influence works at a deeper level than conspicuous
similarity between works by different artists.
One of the limitations in most discussions of influence in music, including those
already mentioned in relation to Humfrey and Lully, is that they confine themselves to
the surface, to conspicuous similarity between materials. It seems obvious that
Humfrey’s style, like that of the majority of the musicians at the French court during
Lully’s reign, would have been shaped by what he heard. In my study of this French
influence it will be necessary to begin by investigating some of the conspicuous
similarities between Lully’s and Humfrey’s music, but I will not confine my
discussion to these surface features alone. Bloom describes poetic influence as a
necessary misreading of the prior artist that leads to new artistic creation, and if we
follow his theory that a creative misreading of Lully’s music yielded something new,
42
Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: a Theory of Poetry 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1973)
43
Ibid., 5.
34
it follows that Humfrey absorbed aspects of Lully’s style, but adapted them to suit the
English genre of the verse anthem.44
The Characteristics of French Instrumental Writing and their role in Humfrey’s
Instrumental Verse Anthems
In order to trace French influence on Humfrey’s instrumental writing in his anthems,
it is necessary to define ‘French’ features, and I particularly wish to focus on the
characteristics of French instrumental writing. One of the challenges of definition is
that, as pointed out by Peter Holman, what we loosely refer to as the French style is
exemplified by Lully’s music and he was Italian by birth.45 Although he would go on
to create a distinctively French style, recognisable by its integration of French dance
rhythms and the development of French genres such as the ballet de cour, as well as
the famous French overture and a distinctive style of French declamation, Lully
actively integrated Italianisms into his music in the early years of his career when
Cardinal Mazarin (1602–61) invited Italian opera into the court of Louis XIV. It is
probable that Humfrey too encountered Italianisms through Lully’s music. However,
these ‘secondary Italianisms’ are not central to the main point, which is the extent to
which Humfrey’s style was influenced by his encounters with music at the French
court. In order to define the French characteristics that I will look for in Humfrey’s
music, I will start by examining some of the features of Lully’s instrumental music.
Lully’s ballets are full of courtly dances and Humfrey must have become very
familiar with their characteristic rhythms and patterns during his visit to France. The
distinctive rhythms of each dance are particularly evident in the ‘Gavotte, pour les
Satyres’ with a ‘Sarabande, pour les mêmes’, and a ‘Bourrée pour les Courtisans’,
from Lully’s Ballet des Plaisirs.46 As noted by Vaughn, the popularity of the minuet
spread quickly throughout Europe following its introduction at the French court
c.1650; Lully used minuet style in many of his compositions that were not strictly
minuet forms, for example in the first Air in the Ballet du Temps.47
44
Ibid, 30.
Peter Holman, ‘Humfrey Restored’ in The Musical Times 128/1738 (December 1987), 694.
46
Please refer to Lully, Ballet des Plaisirs, in Henry Prunières ed., Oeuvres Complètes de JeanBaptiste Lully: Ballets T1: 1654–1657 (Paris: Editions de la Revue Musicale, 1931), 7, 8, 14.
47
Please refer to Ballet du Temps, Oeuvres Complètes: Ballets T1: 1654–1657, 3.
45
35
Lully’s instrumental writing is notable for its rhythmic precision and the prominence
given to the string section of the orchestra. This precision of writing was also
reflected in the orchestral playing and would certainly have impacted on Humfrey.
Violin obbligato is often used and this affords the opportunity for adventurous
harmonies. Structurally, it is common for interest to be concentrated in the outer parts.
This feature probably arose due to the French theatre composers’ practice of writing
only the outer string parts and leaving the inner parts to be filled in by assistants. A
further contributory factor to this difference was the balance of the French orchestra,
which was weighted in favour of the outer parts.48 This is evident in the Symphonie
d’Orphée from the Ballet des Muses.49
One of Lully’s most notable innovations was his development of the French overture.
In his form of the overture the first duple-time section is usually solemn with a
predominance of dotted rhythms. The use of irregular phrase lengths and fluctuating
harmony prevents a sense of stability and maintains forward momentum.50 There is a
half close in the tonic before the triple-time section begins. This new section, which is
binary and homophonic, begins in the tonic of the first section and modulates to a
related key or has a half close halfway through. Usually it features the rhythmic
patterns and emphasis on the second beat that are characteristic of the sarabande.
Phrase lengths in this section are short and regular.51 These features can all be seen in
the overtures to Lully’s L’Amour Malade and Les Amours Déguisé.52 Controversy has
arisen concerning the former overture, and this will be considered later.
The other genre that is particularly relevant to this study is that of the grand motet.
Lully composed his most famous motet Miserere Mei Deus in 1664 and it was
performed during Holy Week in 1666. As already noted, Humfrey’s travels extended
from 1664 to 1667 and given the popularity of this composition, which was admired
48
Holman, ‘Humfrey Restored’, 694.
Please refer to Lully, Le Ballet des Muses: for Baroque Ensemble, Karel Husa ed. (New York:
Associated Music Publishers, 1978), 21–25.
50
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 53.
51
Ibid, 53.
52
Please refer to Lully, Ballet de L’Amour Malade, in Oeuvres Complètes: Ballets T1: 1654–1657, 43–
44 and Ballet des Amours déguisés, in James R. Anthony and Rebecca Harris-Warrick eds, Oeuvres
Complètes: Ballet des Saisons, Les Amours déguisés, Ballet royal de Flore (Hildesheim: Georg Olms
Verlag, 2001), 75–76.
49
36
by Louis XIV and Madame de Sévigné, it is probable that he heard it, although there
is no documentary evidence to prove that he was at the French court during Holy
Week 1666. Dennison asserts that the grand motet’s structure of a string symphony
followed by verses of the psalm sung by various combinations of soloists, chorus and
strings interspersed with string ritornellos recalled the verse anthem to Humfrey and
suggested ways in which to develop the genre.53 It is written for two five-part choirs,
one containing solo singers and dominated by high registers and another larger group
that emphasises the lower registers.54 Typically the grand motet has a heavy
homophonic chorus with unceasing speech rhythms.55 The Miserere Mei Deus is
particularly notable as it is the first grand motet to begin with a five-part instrumental
introduction.56 The most influential feature of the motet is Lully’s adoption of an
overall ternary tonal structure and it is very likely that this shaped Humfrey’s creation
of coherent tonal structures in his verse anthems.
Oboussier describes the verse anthem as half way between the petit motet and the
grand motet and reminds us that it is essentially a piece of chamber music. Lully had
adopted the model of Du Mont’s motet and later the influence of his own motets
would spread to England and throughout Europe. Oboussier draws particular attention
to Locke’s Be thou exalted Lord,57 which is not as long as a typical French grand
motet, but is still quite a large-scale work, for three four-part choirs, three violins,
three violas and continuo bass. It begins with a homophonic chorus praising God and
Charles II in a manner that calls to mind the way that Louis XIV was praised in the
prologues to the operas and ballets.58 The symphony that follows employs many
sarabande rhythms.59 Oboussier states that this composition, which was composed
53
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 26.
Jérôme de la Gorce, ‘Lully’ in Stanley Sadie ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
15 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 302.
55
James R. Anthony, ‘Motet: France: The mid-17th century’ in Stanley Sadie ed., The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians 17 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 220.
56
Please refer to Lully, Ballet de L’Amour Malade, in Oeuvres Complètes: Ballets T1: 1654–1657, 43–
44 and Ballet des Amours déguisés, in Oeuvres Complètes: Ballet des Saisons, Les Amours déguisés,
Ballet royal de Flore, 75–76.
57
Please refer to Locke, Be thou exalted Lord, in Peter le Huray ed. Anthems and Motets (London:
Musica Britannica, Stainer and Bell, 1976), 52–54.
58
Oboussier, Le Grand Motet et le Verse Anthem: Influences et Rapports, 215.
59
Please refer to Locke, Be thou exalted Lord, 58–59.
54
37
two years after Lully’s Miserere Mei Deus shows that Locke was aware of
contemporary French practice.60
In summary, the principal characteristics of Lully’s instrumental style include the use
of dance rhythms and particularly the dotted rhythms of the sarabande and the
courante; idiomatic string writing and the use of the solo violin obbligato; driving
rhythmic precision; interest concentrated in the outer parts; the use of chromaticism
and forward momentum in harmonic motion to instil tension in the harmonic
progressions; unity provided by thematic concentration and recurrent rhythmic or
melodic motives; and the distinctive forms of the binary symphony and the grand
motet. The next step is to investigate whether these features are present in Humfrey’s
music.
The influence of French dances is strong in Humfrey’s anthems and can be seen in the
regularity of phrasing and homophonic textures as well as the characteristic dance
rhythms of which the sarabande, courante and minuet can be found extensively. If we
take just one example of Humfrey’s anthems we see that the triple-time symphony of
O praise the Lord is dominated by the sarabande rhythm (Example 1).
60
Ibid, 215.
38
Example 1
39
The influence of the minuet can be seen in the triple section of the opening symphony
to Humfrey’s O give thanks unto the Lord where there is a very characteristic move
from the tonic B flat major to the dominant F major and back to the tonic again, as
well as regular eight-bar phrasing in triple time and stately crotchet rhythms.61
It seems that the influence of Humfrey’s trip abroad was felt in his compositions as
soon as he arrived home. An anthem that he composed in France was performed on
his return and appears to have come as a surprise for his audience. Pepys recorded on
1st November 1667:
A fine Anthemne, made by Pellam (who is come over) in France, of which there was great
expectation; and endeed is a very good piece of Musique, but still I cannot call the Anthem
anything but Instrumentall music with the Voice, for nothing is made of the words at all. 62
This indicates that the instruments had a more dominant role than was usual in the
anthems Pepys and others would have heard thus far, and this is probably a reflection
of French emphasis on instruments, as seen in the extensive length of the Symphonie
61
Please refer to Humfrey, O give thanks unto the Lord, in Peter Dennison, ed., Complete Church
Music Vol. II, 2 nd edition (London: Musica Britannica, Stainer and Bell, 1985), 2.
62
Robert Latham and William Matthews eds, The Diary of Samuel Pepys: a New and Complete
Transcription 8 (London: Penguin Books, 1974), 515.
40
d’Orphée. Another comment by Pepys regarding the newly returned Humfrey on 15
November 1667 offers a further clue both to the personality of the composer and his
musical taste:
Thence I away home (calling at my Mercer and tailor’s) and there find, as I expected, Mr
Caesar and little Pelham Humfrys, lately returned from France and is an absolute Monsieur,
and as full of form and confidence and vanity, and disparages everything and everybody’s
skill but his own. The truth is, everybody says he is very able; but to hear how he laughs at all
the King’s music here, as Blagrave and others, that they cannot keep time nor tune nor
understand anything, and that Grebus the Frenchman, the King’s Master of the Musique, how
he understands nothing nor can play on any instrument and so cannot compose, and that he
will give him a lift out of his place, and that he and the King are mighty great, and that he hath
already spoken to the King of Grebus, would make a man piss.63
The comment that, ‘they cannot keep time nor tune nor understand anything’ may
indicate that Humfrey admired the style of playing of Lully’s string orchestra, which
was renowned for its rhythmic precision, and that perhaps he found the music on his
return less rhythmically driven and precise. Certainly in comparison to the music of
his English predecessors, Lully’s music is more rhythmically driven. If we compare
the overture to the first Divertissement of Lully’s L’Amour Malade64 to The King
shall Rejoice in thy strength by Cooke the difference is apparent.65 Lully’s
composition is full of dotted patterns, notably dotted crotchets followed by quavers
and groups of two and four quavers that keep the momentum going and unify the
overall structure. If we turn to the instrumental sections or preludes in Cooke’s
composition it can be seen that although the piece, and notably the second prelude, is
full of running quavers, they are not arranged into any recurring patterns. The absence
of such patterns may be a result of the English predilection for polyphony, as is
evident in the consort music of Locke and Purcell, among others. Furthermore, the
preludes do not appear to be either motivically or rhythmically linked to each other,
for example, compare page 150 to 153.
Solo violin obbligato is used in several of Humfrey’s solo verses in duple time.
Similar obbligatos can be found in the music of Giacamo Carissimi (1605–74), Lully,
63
Ibid, 529–530.
Please refer to Lully, Ballet de L’Amour Malade, 49–51.
65
Please refer to Henry Cooke, The King shall Rejoice in thy strength, Barber MS 5001, 147–157.
64
41
and Locke, although Humfrey’s obbligatos are never as extensive as the latter’s.66 In
Hear my crying O God the treble solo is interrupted by the solo violin in bar 87.67
Violin obbligato is also used in O give thanks unto the Lord and repeatedly over a
bass verse in By the waters of Babylon. The overall rhythmic and formal structures of
Humfrey’s string movements were certainly influenced by French models, but they
tend to be more shaped by the characteristic English tendency to drive the harmony by
independent polyphonic lines. Jack A. Westrup notes that in the early version of In the
Midst of Life (Z. 17A), Purcell shows a ‘characteristic disregard for euphony when the
movement of the parts seems to him more important’.68 Also, Humfrey’s anthems
contain more rhythmically active inner parts than the French models.69 For example,
all four parts of the triple section of the opening symphony of Humfrey’s O give
thanks unto the Lord are equally important.
Interest concentrated in the outer parts is more commonly found in the instrumental
textures than in the vocal sections of Humfrey’s music and is further evidence of the
stronger influence of Lully’s music on his instrumental rather than his vocal textures.
However, there is a stronger inclination towards equality between all parts in
Humfrey’s instrumental textures than in any of Lully’s music, and this reflects the
difference in French and English priorities. This is also further evidence of the
aforementioned English predilection for polyphony.
In almost all of Humfrey’s symphony anthems, the opening symphony is repeated, in
full or in part, around halfway through the work. This repetition, which often occurs
when there is an important shift of emphasis in the text, reinforces the overall unity of
the anthem, for example in Thou art my King, O God where overall symmetry is
created by the reappearance of the symphony halfway through. The overall structure
is: symphony – verse – ritornello – verse – repetition of symphony – verse – ritornello
– verse – concluding ritornello, followed by a repetition of the first verse and
ritornello.70 His symphonies follow the same formal outlines as the bipartite French
overture. The triple-time sections of Humfrey’s symphonies do not contain the same
66
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 49.
Please refer to Humfrey, Hear my crying O God, in Complete Church Music, 59.
68
Jack A. Westrup, Purcell Nigel Fortune rev (London: Dent, 1980), 207.
69
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 54.
70
Please refer to Humfrey, Thou art my King, O God, in Complete Church Music, 72–81.
67
42
amount of imitation as their French models but they maintain the metrical contrast
inherent in the form.71 A symphony that obviously follows the outlined French model
is O praise the Lord.72 The symphonies of some anthems do not contain both sections;
they may just have a duple- or triple-time section, for example Have mercy upon me
O God opens with just a duple section. Humfrey labelled the first version of this
composition as ‘overture’ and Vaughn states that due to its consistent dotted rhythms
and the interplay between the instruments, this anthem is stylistically closest to the
French overture, so it is significant that he used the French word as distinct from the
semi-English ‘symphony’.73
In addition to the opening symphony and its repetition halfway through, the vocal
sections of several anthems are interspersed with instrumental ritornellos. These
ritornellos sometimes develop a phrase from the vocal section such as in By the
waters of Babylon where the short ritornellos develop melodic figures from the vocal
sections. This creates a sense of continuity by extending the vocal section’s ideas into
new sonorities. In general, the ritornellos appear to be instrumentally conceived and
could stand as independent movements. The increased emphasis on the instrumental
sections is probably due to French influence. For example, several movements in
Lully’s ballets and motets have ritornello sections with narrative properties, such as
the ‘Ritournelle pour le concert du Printemps’ from the eighth entrée of the Ballet des
Saisons, in which the scene has changed from winter to a garden in springtime, filled
with laughter and joy. The music reflects the jubilant atmosphere with bouncy dotted
rhythms and running quavers.74 In the Miserere Mei Deus, the line ‘Redde mihi
laetitiam salutaris tui’ (‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation’) is followed by a
ritornello that develops the same phrase as the vocal line but ends with trills in two
parts, further reflecting the joyful sentiment of the text.75 Humfrey’s instrumental
movements are notably more expansive than equivalent movements in Cooke and
Locke; for example the ritornellos in Cooke’s The King shall Rejoice in thy strength
and Locke’s Domini est terra are very short.76 Vaughn believes that Humfrey was
71
Vaughn, ‘The Restoration Chapel Royal: A confluence of traditions and styles’, 329.
Please refer to Humfrey, O praise the Lord, 33–34.
73
Vaughn, ‘The Restoration Chapel Royal: A confluence of traditions and styles’, 330.
74
Please refer to Lully, Ballet des Saisons, 44–45.
75
Please refer to Lully, Miserere Mei Deus, 43–46
76
Please refer to Locke, Domini est terra, Anthems and Motets, 22–29.
72
43
moving towards the Baroque trend of distinguishing between instrumental and vocal
styles and that the importance of the ritornellos in his structures reflects this.77
Chromaticism in Humfrey’s music is typical of his time in that there are several
juxtapositions of flat and sharp degrees of the scale. The consequent richness of
harmonic colour is one of the most striking features of his style, a feature that was
also to become strongly associated with Blow and Purcell. This characteristic is
rooted in Tudor polyphony and before, it can be found in pieces such as Lift up your
heads by Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625) and I call and cry by Thomas Tallis (c.1505–
85). Dennison notes that Humfrey uses chromaticism of this kind in lightly-scored or
homophonic textures where ‘it becomes an agent of what is primarily a harmonic
impulse’.78 For example, the use of accidentals to create a sense of the melodic minor
scale in O praise the Lord, (Example 2).
The repetition of recurrent motives provides thematic unity in both Lully and
Humfrey’s music. In the overture to Lully’s Ballet des Saisons a stepwise descending
figure of two quavers followed by a crotchet is repeated throughout, and a similar
device is used by Humfrey in the first version of Have mercy upon me O God, in
which stepwise descending dotted quavers and semiquavers infiltrate the whole
texture.79 Similarly the repetition of intervals providing unity was to be found in
Lully’s music. We see that Humfrey also uses particular intervals to expressive ends
such as in By the waters of Babylon where it seems to me that the rising and falling
semitones reflect the unceasing movement of water. Another idiom resulting from
French influence is the combination of a falling conjunct phrase in the bass with a
rising conjunct phrase in the top line.80 This reflects standard rhetorical concepts in
music. An example of this in Humfrey’s music can be found at the phrase ‘endureth
for ever’ in O give thanks unto the Lord, (Example 3).
77
Vaughn, ‘The Restoration Chapel Royal: A confluence of traditions and styles’, 337.
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 35.
79
Please refer to Lully, Ballet des Saisons, 13–14.
80
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 37.
78
44
Example 2
45
Example 3
46
If one looks for French features in Humfrey’s two anthems that are most often
reported to structurally reflect the influence of the French motet, By the waters of
Babylon and O give thanks unto the Lord, one finds winding chromaticism throughout
and dance rhythms in the symphonies. Oboussier cites the section ‘O daughter of
Babylon’ in the former composition, which was first written as a verset and linked by
a ritornello based on the same material to a contrapuntal repetition by the choir, as
similar in style to Charpentier’s musical language.81 O give thanks unto the Lord is
the anthem that most strongly reflects the influence of Lully’s motet. It is 267 bars
long, which means that it was probably written for a special occasion, and it has an
overall ternary structure that recalls the Miserere Mei Deus. It begins in B flat, its
central section is based around D minor and it concludes in B flat. The repetition of a
single motive provides thematic unity. The central unifying function of the symphony
and the nine ritornellos is evidence of the increased importance of the instrumental
sections, again probably influenced by their respective role in the French motet.
Another characteristic of the motet that Humfrey uses in this anthem is the versechorus antiphony. He alternates the ATTB ensemble with the chorus in a manner that
is reminiscent of the alternation of petit choeur and grand choeur in the motet.82
Lully’s use of dissonance in this motet appears to have had an influence on Humfrey’s
other compositions too. Dennison notes that in O Lord my God,83 the phrase ‘thou art
my succour’ occurs in both the central chorus (bars 75–100) and the final verse (bars
139–177), and that in each instance Humfrey develops the phrase into an episode of
mounting tension by means of a chain of suspended dissonances unfolding over a
recurrent motive.84 This reminds us of the treatment of ‘Sacrificium Deo’ in Miserere
Mei Deus.85
Oboussier compares Locke’s and Humfrey’s versions of By the waters of Babylon. He
notes that they both have the same dimensions although Humfrey’s contains more
French features such as idiomatic string writing. However he makes an interesting
statement concerning the latter’s composition:
81
Oboussier, Le Grand Motet et le Verse Anthem: Influences et Rapports, 217.
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 65.
83
Please refer to Humfrey, Pelham, O Lord my God, in Complete Church Music, 20–32.
84
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 74.
85
Ibid, 74 and please refer to Lully, Jean-Baptiste, Miserere Mei Deus, 60–61.
82
47
cette musique a un caractère plus français et cependant, … elle n’aurait pu être composé par
un Français de l’époque.’ (this music has a more French character and yet … it could not have
been composed by a French person of this era).86
Obousier believes that Humfrey’s By the waters of Babylon is closer to Locke’s work
than that of a French composer.87 He draws this conclusion due to the similarity of
this work’s dimensions to Locke’s and goes on to say that the most distinctive style
that emerges from it is that of Humfrey himself. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that
French influence can be detected in the compositions of both Humfrey and Locke.
This raises the question of the degree of secondary French influence that Humfrey
may have felt through his English predecessors as well as raising questions about the
kinds of influence of which we might be speaking.
Divided Opinions - A Controversial Debate
As part of this article it has become clear that scholarly opinion is divided on the
subject of French influence, and particularly the topic of primary and secondary
influences, on Humfrey’s verse anthems. Oboussier states that:
il ne fait pas de doute que l’ouverture et la musique de danse à la manière de Lully furent
adoptées par les compositeurs anglais. (there is no doubt but that the overture and dance music
in the style of Lully was adopted by English composers). 88
On the other hand, Ian Spink writes that: ‘first-hand French influences are hard to pinpoint’ and that ‘overall his anthems owe much more to Locke and Cooke than to
Lully and Carissimi’.89 He believes that the symphonies to Humfrey’s anthems are
similar to those used by Lully in some of his early ballets but that Humfrey had
adopted the model before he went travelling, for example in the early anthem Haste
thee O God. This leads him to conclude that Humfrey’s continental travels were not
as influential as might seem. Following study of this anthem, the similarity of its
symphony to the binary French overture is undeniable but the anthem’s overall
structure stands in sharp contrast to that of the later compositions. There are no
instrumental sections apart from the opening symphony and this differs from the
86
Oboussier, Le Grand Motet et le Verse Anthem: Influences et Rapports, 217.
Ibid, 217.
88
Ibid, 218.
89
Spink, Restoration Cathedral Music: 1660–1714, 119.
87
48
layout of the later anthems that are structured around and unified by the recurrence of
instrumental ritornellos. Therefore, Haste thee O God is clearly distinguishable from
the anthems that Humfrey wrote after his travels; it shows that he encountered strong
secondary French influence before he left England but it also supports the argument
that Humfrey’s stay in France was very influential.
A most heated debate on this topic arose during the 1970s between Peter Dennison
and Don Franklin. Dennison was certain that there was a strong case to be made for
the influence of French music on Humfrey’s verse anthems. He edited the Musica
Brittannica edition of Humfrey’s church music and in the introduction to this edition
he made several statements regarding the degree of French influence. This prompted
Franklin to respond in a review. In turn, Dennison replied to Franklin’s comments and
their correspondence was published in the 1975 and 1978 editions of The Journal of
the American Musicological Society.
Franklin’s 1975 review acknowledged the fact that some of Humfrey’s compositions,
such as O give thanks unto the Lord, are similar in style to the French grand motet;
however, he disagreed with some of Dennison’s other comments regarding French
influence. The statement that caused the most problems for Franklin was that
‘Humfrey’s symphonies and longer ritornellos are cast in the patterns that Lully
established in his ballets at the end of the 1650s’.90 Franklin did not believe that
evidence existed to back up this claim and he argued that if we compare Humfrey’s
symphonies and Lully’s overtures we see that, although both have two-part forms, the
opening sections of the symphonies by Humfrey are more contrapuntal than those in
Lully’s ballets, and that the second parts of the symphonies are not fugal, as we find
with Lully, but dance-like. He used the overture to Le Mariage forcé (1664) to
support his claims. Franklin admitted that ‘Humfrey undoubtedly heard Lully’s
instrumental music performed during his trip to France, but his own instrumental
writing appears to be modelled after that of Locke and Cooke’. 91 He then went a step
further and asserted that:
90
Don Franklin, ‘Review of Pelham Humfrey: Complete Church Music’ vols I & II, (Musica
Brittanica: xxxiv–xxxv), Peter Dennison ed., Journal of the American Musicological Society 28 (Spring
1975), 144.
91
Ibid, 144–145.
49
A comparison of Lully’s music with the symphonies of Cooke reveals that it was Cooke, not
Lully, who introduced Humfrey to the step tripla and the dotted rhythms in triple time which
pervade Humfrey’s instrumental anthems. 92
Dennison responded in the 1978 journal. He wrote that, contrary to Franklin’s
accusations, his statement that ‘the symphonies and longer ritornellos are cast in
patterns that Lully established in his ballets at the end of the 1650s’ could be
supported. He admitted that the second sections of Lully’s overtures did indeed
become fugal but that the earlier ones, such as that of L’Amour Malade (1657) had
second sections that were more homophonic and dance-like, similar to Humfrey’s
instrumental writing.93
Franklin then made an interesting move by questioning the very premise of
Dennison’s statement. He claimed that a study of the music to the early ballets would
show that Lully established no formal pattern in his overtures until Alcidiane (1658).
It is true that it is not possible to cite the structure used in L’Amour Malade as typical
of Lully’s early style since we do not have enough extant evidence to prove or
disprove that a pattern existed at this stage. However, in either case it can be argued
that the overtures reflect French influence whether it was structurally typical of
Lully’s early output or not.
Although Franklin did not deny some French influence, he definitely directed his
argument in favour of English influence at the expense of French. Following the
above exchange, he wrote that:
The validity of the statement, however, must still be called into question, since it is based on
the assumption that Humfrey was directly influenced by the French instrumental style. The
hypothesis that Humfrey had direct contact with Lully’s music during his travels on the
Continent between 1665 and 1667 is an attractive one, but cannot be historically documented.
(That Humfrey heard Lully’s Miserere, as Dennison claims, is possible, although conjectural;
if the young Englishman heard any stage works performed during his visit to France, it would
have been one of Lully’s comédie-ballets, such as Le Mariage forcé)94
92
Ibid, 145.
Peter Dennison, ‘Letter from Peter Dennison’ in Journal of the American Musicological Society 31
(Autumn 1978), 541.
94
Don Franklin, ‘Letter from Don Franklin’ in Journal of the American Musicological Society 31
(Autumn 1978), 542.
93
50
In the earlier article he wrote that: ‘Humfrey undoubtedly heard Lully’s instrumental
music performed during his trip to France’. If we compare this statement to the quote
above it is clear that in the later letter Franklin was doing his utmost to downplay the
possibility that Humfrey came into contact with Lully’s music during his visit at all.
It is true that the hypothesis that he did must be conjectural. However, this is the sort
of problem in historiography that is not amenable to discussion of hard evidence such
as dated documents, or autograph copies by Lully, simply because such evidence does
not exist. In such cases, it becomes necessary to argue on balance of probability; and
in particular, it is necessary to bear in mind one of the most important dictums of
empirical historiography – ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’95 We
know that Humfrey received funds to study at the French court and that Lully had a
monopoly on French music at the court. It seems very improbable to me that a young
developing composer such as Humfrey could have lived at the French court for two
years and not encountered and been influenced by Lully and the characteristics of
French music. Further evidence that Humfrey had direct contact with Lully may be
provided by William Boyce (1710–79), who was writing about a century after
Humfrey’s visit and may have had access to evidence now lost. He wrote that
Humfrey was sent to France ‘to receive further Instruction from John Baptist Lully, a
Florentine Musician of great Eminence, at that Time in the Service of the French
Court’.96
It is almost certain that Humfrey continued composing in France, as Pepys’s diary
entry of the 1 November 1667 describes ‘a fine Anthemne made by Pellam’. This was
only six days after Humfrey’s return so it is most likely that it was composed abroad.
This supports the hypothesis that Humfrey continued to develop his compositional
abilities while in France.
Franklin claimed that it was more likely that Humfrey heard one of the comédieballets rather than the Miserere Mei Deus, but in view of the work’s popularity it is
still probable that he heard this motet. It seems that Franklin brushed past the fact that
95
96
This phrase is so widely known that its origin is unknown.
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 6.
51
Humfrey’s verse anthem O give thanks unto the Lord is similar to the French grand
motet. He did not deny the fact but only mentions it in one sentence after he states
that: ‘Peter Dennison … is eager to portray Humfrey as the master of more than one
style’.97
I disagree with a statement that Franklin made in the 1978 reply to Dennison’s letter
to the editor in which he said that:
Nor can the claim that one of Humfrey’s principal innovations was to “graft predominantly
French string textures into the English anthem” be supported by musical evidence; neither can
the newly-made assertion that Banister and Humfrey “appropriated” this “earlier type of
texture.”98
Following my comparison of the overtures to Lully’s ballets with the instrumental
sections of Humfrey’s verse anthems, it is clear that there are certainly French
features to be found in the latter and thus it can be claimed that one of Humfrey’s
innovations was to graft French string textures into the anthem. It must be admitted
that Humfrey’s writing is more contrapuntal and texturally dense than Lully’s but the
influence of French idioms on the string writing is undeniable.
The Role of French Features in Humfrey’s Music in Relation to his English
Predecessors
The argument raised in the previous section inevitably brings me to the consideration
of the role of the French features in the light of the music of Cooke and Locke.
Prompted by Franklin’s statement that Humfrey was more influenced by his English
predecessors than Lully’s instrumental music, and that they would have introduced
him to the step tripla and dotted rhythms, it is necessary to assess the degree of
influence of Lully’s music on Humfrey’s output in comparison to the influences of
Cooke and Locke.
Without doubt the structure of the verse anthem and the introduction of the
instrumental sections were both handed down to Humfrey by his English
97
98
Franklin, ‘Review of Pelham Humfrey: Complete Church Music’, 144.
Franklin, ‘Letter from Don Franklin’, 542.
52
predecessors. Pepys recorded his impression of Cooke’s new music on the 14
September 1662:
Thence to White-Hall chapel, where sermon almost done, and I heard Captain Cooke’s new
Musique; this the first day of having Vialls and other Instruments to play a Symphony
between every verse of the Anthem; but the Music more full than it was the last Sunday, and
very fine it is. 99
Following study of Cooke’s and Locke’s instrumental verse anthems, it is clear that
there is a big difference between the importance attributed to the instrumental sections
in their anthems and those of Humfrey. One of Cooke’s most important innovations in
the verse anthem was the inclusion of self-contained rather than simply preludial
movements, although it is clear from The King shall Rejoice in thy strength that
preludes were still present.100 Although there is extensive use of dotted rhythms in the
opening symphony of Behold O God our defender the ritornellos that follow are very
short and do not allow any sustained melodic development.101 There is no sense that
these instrumental ritornellos have a strong unifying role in the overall structure,
instead they are more like complements to the vocal sections, and indeed, they are
often used to wind up the vocal sections to close anthems. They do this through
repetition of the closing vocal material on the instruments.
Locke was the leading composer at the time of the Restoration and he wrote several
verse anthems including some that, according to Spink, forecast the direction that the
symphony anthem would take. This new form with opening symphonies and
ritornellos rather than full string accompaniments is evident in O be joyful in the Lord,
all ye lands.102 He was most well known for his consort music and at times he reused
this music in the symphonies to his verse anthems. For example, Locke rewrote 5c
from the ‘Broken Consort’ Part I for the symphony to Super flumina Babylonis.103
Humfrey would have encountered the traditional dance forms that Locke used in his
99
Robert Latham ed., The Diary of Samuel Pepys: a New and CompleteTranscription 3 (London: G.
Bell and Sons Ltd, 1970), 197.
100
Peter Dennison and Bruce Wood, ‘Henry Cooke’ in Stanley Sadie ed. The New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians 6 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 386.
101
Please refer to Cooke, Henry, Behold O God our defender, Barber MS 5001, 118–120, 122–125.
102
Spink, Restoration Cathedral Music: 1660–1714, 112.
103
Michael Tilmouth, ‘Notes on Performance’ to Matthew Locke: Chamber Music II (London: Musica
Britannica, Stainer and Bell Ltd, 1972), xix.
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suites, for example the ‘Courante’ from Suite No. 2 in G major.104 Thus, there is
definitely substance to the argument that Humfrey was introduced to the use of
instrumental sections and some dance rhythms in the music of Cooke and Locke.
Nonetheless, there are key differences in how these features are employed by
Humfrey.
Humfrey’s symphonies and ritornellos are not only longer than his predecessors’ but
they play a central role in the thematic and structural unity of the verse anthem as a
whole. For example, in Locke’s I will hear what the Lord God will say the short
symphony that opens and the two very brief ritornellos that follow are not strongly
linked by either motivic patterns or rhythmic consistency.105 As described by Peter Le
Huray, although Locke uses many dotted rhythms that are characteristic of French
music, he does not use these rhythmic patterns to create a stylised rhythmic
consistency ‘of the kind that characterises the French overture’.106
Humfrey’s earliest compositions such as Haste thee O God and the first version of
Have mercy upon me O God most strongly reflect the influence of Cooke and Locke.
Although these early anthems begin with independent string movements and contain
dotted rhythms, which Dennison believes represent Humfrey’s first ‘essays in the
French style’,107 stylistic consistency has not yet been developed. Have mercy upon
me O God has internal ritornellos but they simply echo the preceding vocal material in
the manner of Cooke.108 In comparison with his later anthems, there is no strong tonal
structure and the result is an anthem that lacks the direction found in his later
compositions. In his mature compositions Humfrey imposed a tonal structure on the
anthem that was not to be found in Cooke or Locke’s music. Almost all of the
instrumental sections within an anthem have the same tonal centre as that established
in the opening symphony. In the longer anthems he developed sections that could be
subdivided into smaller sections that were in contrasting but related keys. It has
104
Please refer to Locke, ‘Courante,’ in Michael Tilmouth ed. Suite No. 2 in G major, Chamber Music
II (London: Musica Britannica, Stainer and Bell, 1972), 8.
105
Please refer to Locke, I will hear what the Lord God will say, Anthems and Motets, 82, 84, 85.
106
Peter Le Huray, ‘Introduction’ in Matthew Locke: Anthems and Motets (London: Musica Britannica,
Stainer and Bell Ltd, 1976), xix.
107
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 56.
108
Ibid, 57.
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already been shown that Lully’s Miserere Mei Deus influenced his evolution of broad
ternary tonal structures.109
Regarding harmony, Dennison writes that Humfrey thought more intuitively in
harmonic terms than either Locke or Blow whose most striking harmonic gestures
result from the contrapuntal interaction of a number of angular lines.110 As we have
already seen, Humfrey’s harmonic language tends to be more chromatic than either
his English predecessors’ or Lully’s. In an appraisal of Humfrey’s influence on
Purcell, Le Huray and Harper state that ‘Of Purcell’s other elder contemporaries,
Pelham Humfrey wrote orchestral anthems which are much less angular than Locke’s,
the French influence being much in evidence’.111
It is important to bear in mind that Humfrey was not the first English composer to
study in France; Banister went before him and returned to England in 1662. His music
is also full of dotted rhythmic patterns, Dennison notes the use of the courante pattern
in Banister’s Braule in A minor and suggests that this composer provided the early
Restoration composers with their first real link with French music.112 For example, we
know that Locke certainly encountered Banister’s music and that he too had travelled
abroad during the Commonwealth. It is evident that Humfrey was subject to a great
deal of secondary French influence through his English predecessors. Nonetheless,
these indirect influences on his music only became central elements of his
development of overall formal, tonal and rhythmic coherency following his encounter
with music at the French court.
I propose that Cooke and Locke used the dotted rhythms characteristic of French
music, and indeed that Humfrey may first have encountered them through their music,
as argued by Franklin, but that it was Lully who then influenced him to employ these
patterns to create a rhythmically consistent style as well as an overarching formal
design that led to overall structural unity.
109
Ibid, 55.
Peter Dennison, ‘The Church Music of Pelham Humfrey’ in Proceedings of the Royal Musical
Association 98 (1971-1972), 68.
111
Le Huray and Harper, ‘Anthem’, 723.
112
Dennison, Pelham Humfrey, 24.
110
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Conclusion
Whether Humfrey was more influenced by Cooke and Locke or by Lully it must be
acknowledged that features of the Continental style were definitely present in the
music of his predecessors. I have become acutely conscious of the difficulties of
defining an English Baroque style removed from the wider European context.
Humfrey is the ideal candidate for this discussion as his individual compositional
style built on the work of his English predecessors, and integrated both French and
Italian features in the development of the Restoration instrumental verse anthem that
marked the arrival of an English Baroque style. It is difficult to imagine how the genre
could have developed as it did without the varying degrees of continental influence.
Although I have not focused on Humfrey’s role as a teacher, it is important to
remember that he was closely associated with and eventually eclipsed by his pupil,
Purcell. Purcell was brought up as a church musician and the various influences of
Humfrey, Blow and Locke would play an important part in the development of his
compositional style.113 Dennison draws attention to the symphony of Purcell’s early
anthem, Behold now, praise the Lord, as it falls into Humfrey’s duple-triple
homophonic mould.114 It is possible that the line of French influence could be traced
further. However, as considered by Martin Adams, there was an extremely complex
web of native and foreign influences around Purcell, and it is important to distinguish
between levels and kinds of compositional development and influence when
discussing his music.115 As we have seen, there was an equally complex web around
Humfrey and the above statement is equally applicable in his case.
In conclusion, it is very difficult to give one strand of influence precedence over
another or to try to define one feature as a result of direct or indirect influence.
Humfrey is what Bloom might define as a ‘strong’ composer since he did more than
simply repeat the examples of Lully or his English predecessors. He incorporated
elements of their style into the very fabric of his composition and he travelled in a
different direction to create something distinctive and new in his verse anthems. He
113
Peter Dennison, ‘Two Studies of Purcell’s Sacred Music: (a) The Stylistic Origins of the Early
Church Music’ in F.W.Sternfeld, Nigel Fortune and Edward Olleson eds, Essays on Opera and English
Music in honour of Sir Jack Westrup (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Press, 1975), 44.
114
Ibid, 51.
115
Martin Adams, Henry Purcell: The origins and development of his musical style (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), ix–x.
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was influenced by his English predecessors, including the continental characteristics
of their compositions, but it was his direct contact with French music on his trip
abroad that resulted in the creation of a more coherently structured, goal-driven and
unified verse anthem.
One of Bloom’s central premises is that the strong poet rejects even more than he
accepts. That rejection is part of the process of becoming strong and individual. From
an early age, Humfrey was steeped in the somewhat old-fashioned style of English
music, with its inclination towards polyphonic independence of line. His time in
France seems to have shaped his adoption of the surface features (conspicuous
similarities) of French style such as formal outline, tonal schemes, and rhythmic
patterns. However, he was still Humfrey the Englishman, and the deeper aspects of
his style, such as the inclination towards polyphony and the shaping of melodic ideas
in a certain way did not go away. The two things blended together; and because those
deeper characteristics shape the sound of the music so profoundly, his music still
sounds English, even though it might look French on some levels of conspicuous
similarity.
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