Purcell, the anthem, and the culture of preaching

Musical Times, Autumn 2009 by Plank, Steven

TOWARDS THE END of the liturgies of Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the rubrics note that 'In Quires and Places where they sing, here followeth the anthem'. Although the 'places where they sing' was far from universal, in the Chapel Royal and various other choral foundations, the anthem in the last part of the 17th century blossomed into a rich and distinctive repertory in the hands of composers such as Henry Purcell. That it blossomed at this time was not without challenges: the challenges of lingering Puritan criticism and, perhaps more formidably, those imposed by the hiatus of the interregnum. The widespread Puritan discouragement of formal church music during the years of the Commonwealdi - choirs were disbanded and organs removed - meant that the development of the style would lay stagnant and that the training of chapel singers, in particular boy trebles, would suffer a serious disruption. In short, the demands for formal church music at the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 required a 'cold start'. It was not only music that faced the challenge of sudden demand; the depletion of the Chapel Royal at Whitehall under Cromwell necessitated considerable and speedy action, as well. A manuscript note regarding 17 June 1660, only a scant few weeks after Charles II's return to London, observes that 'his majesty's Chapell at Whitehall was fitted with organs and all other things fitt for his majesty, which [the 17th] was the first day that his majesty was at his devocetion theire'.' And several years later the refurbishing was still ongoing, with requests for Bibles, communion books, psalters, and 'Turkish carpets to lay before the Communion table and the altar'.2

A number of things point to the difficulties facing early Restoration church composers, such as instrumental doubling of the treble part to shore up inexperienced boys, a relative scarcity of solo treble verses, and the persistence of older repertories. These older repertories offered a familiarity that was both strengthening at a time of great social change and also of practical advantage. They also reflected the bent of the composers whose stylistic development had been thwarted by the Commonwealth. However, Charles II, coming to the throne as a young man, full of Continental tastes and enthusiasms, would have his own ideas about chapel music. Seeking a replication of the French royal style, he encouraged and required the English 'symphony anthem', replete with dance-like symphonies and ritornellos to which he could tap his royal toe. And, as we know from the rich description of Thomas Tudway, a chorister in the Chapel Royal in the early years of the Restoration, the task of writing in this new style fell to bright young members of the Chapel, like Pelham Humfrey and John Blow, young musicians without preconceived, old-style affinities.

Ten years or so their junior, Purcell faced a less pressing need to be innovative in the development of his anthem style. Indeed, one of the more striking facets of his large body of sacred works is the wide range of influence that comes into play. Purcell's anthems number in die vicinity of 70 works, and it is unsurprising that this would be the case. A Child of the Chapel Royal and later one of the Chapel's organists (appointed in 1682), as well as organist at Westminster Abbey from 1679, Purcell's musical formation and subsequent appointments would have firmly imprinted upon him the liturgical round, the ceremonial life of the court and the requirements of both. In developing his own anthem style, Purcell drew on the influential models of Humfrey, Blow and Matthew Locke, as well as earlier, pre-Commonwealth composers. His affective expression, his contrapuntal bent, and his rhetorical flair substantially reveal the debt to his forebears.5 Blow, Locke and Humfrey were close at hand. Tallis, Tye and other Elizabethan and early Stuart composers that Purcell would know from anthologies like John Barnard's 1641 collection, First Book of Selected Church Musick, were further removed, but all helped to form his anthem style. In perhaps less explicit, but equally powerful ways, so too did the robust culture of preaching. In order better to appreciate the development of Purcell's anthem style and to explore its relationship with 17th-century preaching, it is necessary to consider something of the complexity of the anthem's history and to explore that history in tandem with the emergence of a culture of preaching under the Stuart monarchs.

THE BLOSSOMING of Restoration church music presents several complexities. For instance, it claims a richly spiritual power, yet was sometimes practised with less than a pious attitude; it claimed to anticipate heavenly delight, yet Puritan suspicions would continue to prompt its defence; and despite its explicit spiritual content, it was assuredly no stranger to political appropriation. In his St Cecilia's Day sermon for 1695, Charles Hickman, then a chaplain-in-ordinary to William HI, advised the listeners of church music to compose themselves 'to hear it, with heavenly, abstracted, devoted minds: For there is something in Religious Musick, so Divine, something so like the Joys of Heaven, that the Blessed above do not disdain to hold Communion with us, in these Exercises of our Devotion.'4 This notion of contemporary, earthly music opening the door to heavenly communion is at the time not a new one - for instance, in 1633 George Herbert memorably hymned church music as 'the way to heaven's door' - but Hickman's high view of the power of church music is an explicit acknowledgement of the spiritual claim. Yet, despite Hickman's enthusiasm and the celebrative nature of the Feast of St Cecilia, his and other Cecilian sermons were offered in defence of music against Puritan suspicions that surprisingly lingered here over 30 years after the overthrow of the Commonwealth. And although Hickman's view was decidedly spiritual, not everyone involved seemed to come to the practice of church music with pious attitude intact. Thomas Brown's Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702), for example, offers a 'letter' from John Blow to the dead Purcell, catching him up on the news of London. He writes: