After more than fifty years of service as organist and master of the choristers, Thomas Tomkins would see his beloved cathedral and city suffer greatly for its loyalty to the monarchy during the years of the Civil War. Parliament’s troops had vandalized many churches up and down the country, and Tomkins, in memory of the recently executed King Charles I at the start of 1649, consequently wrote ‘A Sad Pavan: for These Distracted Times’ – a short keyboard piece often performed as a string quartet, with a fitting description of the period to come, known as the Commonwealth.
Acting simultaneously as both the head of state and the head of government, Oliver Cromwell, bearing the understated title of ‘Lord Protector’, was seemingly ready to strip the country of its deep and rich musical traditions, so lovingly built up by the Stuart monarchy. At Westminster Abbey, parliament troops ‘brake down the rayl about the Altar, and burnt it in the place where it stood … They put on some of the Singing-men’s surplices, and, in contempt of that cononicall habite, ran up and down the Church; he that wore the surplice was the hare, the rest were hounds.’ Whilst at Exeter Cathedral, boy choristers were taunted, with soldiers mockingly saying, ‘Boys, we have spoiled your trade, you must go and sing hot pudding pies.’ And finally, at Winchester Cathedral, soldiers had marched in with ‘drums and colours’, ripped out the altar and rails, and along with ‘the Books of Common Prayer and all the Singing books belonging to the Quire’, burned them in a drunken celebration in a nearby alehouse.
Music and drama had all but disappeared by the start of the Commonwealth, with public playhouses closing their doors as early as 1642, and sanctions decreeing that all stages and seating were to be ripped apart and destroyed, with actors facing a ‘whipping’ and audience members subject to fines. Attorny and occasional poet, James Wright, explained that, “[there are] two Ordinances of the Long Parliament … By which all Stage-Plays and Interludes are absolutely forbid; the Stages, Seats, Gallers to be pulled down; all Players tho’ calling themselves the King or Queens servants, and as such acting with this realm, all of them on conviction, to be punished and fined according to Law; the money forfeited by them to go to the Poor of the Parish; and every Spectator to Pay 5s [shillings] to the use of the Poor.”
Gone as well were the masques, whereby the festive courtly entertainment of song and dance had allowed talented amateurs to perform amongst professional performers.
As for musicians, employment was no longer easy; with no clear structure and hierarchy as seen with the Stuart monarchy, employment and opportunities were hard to come by, and perhaps a musician was lucky to be employed by a rich private landowner, become a teacher or otherwise be occupied by less flamboyant jobs.
All this is not to say that there was a blank period of music during the Commonwealth. Music had simply been driven underground below the public surface and into the privacy of those that could either perform it (in a miscellaneous manner), or those that could afford having it performed. Roger North, in Musicall Grammarian (1728), wrote, “When most other good arts languished musick held up her head, not at Court nor (in ye cant of those times) profane theatres, but in private society, for many chose to fiddle at home”. Cromwell himself enjoyed music, as a result of his wealthy upbringing in Huntingdonshire and his time spent as a Cambridge undergraduate. Most notably he was a keen performer and listener of Richard Dering and his Latin motets of Cantica Sacra. Oxford diarist Anthony Wood wrote that “Oliver was most taken with [the latin songs] tho he did not allow singing, or Organ in Churches.”
Gone were the days of composers such as Tomkins, Gibbons, the Lawes brothers and John Cooper (Giovanni Coprario), but a new generation would soon emerge from the depths of the Commonwealth; a ‘rebirth’ of music after just over a decade of ‘Interregnum’.
The return and consequent accession of Charles II in 1660 coincided with a number of changes in musical style throughout the Restoration period, through what can be seen as a somewhat ordered progression with different stages of development.
Features of pre-Civil War church music were reinstated, such as the Chapel Royal choir, the Book of Common Prayer in 1662, which provided a variety of liturgical text to be set to music, and organs in churches. Charles, however, using his experience of life in lavish French courts, was ready to facilitate much more than simply a reintroduction of the tools previously used for music.
Life at the French court with his first cousin, King Louis XIV, would have given Charles an insight into the lavish lifestyle of a King, something that perhaps he could have himself one day. This included bizarre rituals such as people being honoured with watching King Louis get dressed by his servants to the background music of a French Overture, or how normal economics didn’t apply to the King and he could have whatever he wanted, simply because he was just that powerful. The Palace of Versailles perpetually maintained this constant and expensive state of luxury and civilised yet ostentatious behaviour; some of the many things that Charles wanted to and would go on to replicate upon his return to England. During his time at the French court, Charles would have also appreciated King Louis’ royal string band, namely the ‘Vingt-quatre violons’, the twenty-four violins, which Charles famously replicated upon his return to the throne.
Up until now, the height of English style music came from pre-Commonwealth composers such as Orlando Gibbons and William Lawes. This style was highly polyphonic and contrapuntal, and contained many complex imitative structures within the music, something Charles was not overly interested in and bored listening to. Instead, he preferred something livelier that he could tap his feet to; music with a strongly defined rhythm and a clear melody on top; something akin to the dance forms such as the gavotte, bourrée and minuet he was used to whilst in France. Amateur musician and invaluable witness of the time, Roger North, says,
“He [Charles] had lived some considerable time abroad where the French musick was in request, which consisted of Entry (perhaps) and then Brawles, as they were called, that is, native aires and dances…which habit the King had got, and never in his life, could endure any that he could not act by keeping the time; which made the common andante or else the step-tripla the onely musicall styles at Court in his time. And after the manner of France, he set up a band of 24 violins to play at his dinners, which disbanded the old English musick at once.”
It is clear that there was a heavy influence of French music that Charles had brought over and integrated into English music. Many of the musicians he brought in were from Italy and France, both countries that had their own musical developments going on. It can be seen from North’s quote, the new ensemble was enjoying responsibilities that had previously belonged to other English groups, and that this new arsenal of string instruments allowed composers to think in much broader terms of harmony, and that harmony accompanying the single line on top. On top of this, Italian music was also having its influence on English monody, with Monteverdi’s style known as seconda prattica giving rise to vocal soloists’ technical and expressive reach.
Jonathan Keates sums up the impact and significance of Italian music on English composers, saying, “Intensely word-conscious as English culture has always been, the stile recitativo of the Italian Baroque was bound to be seized upon avidly by composers of the early Stuart period as an ideal vehicle for the weightier sort of meditative or amorous discourse. The challenge in such music was twofold: on the one hand the composer must try not to let the longer verse lines slacken into rambling aimlessness; on the other he needed to avoid a potential rhythmic tedium in the repeated iambic trot of the chosen metre.”
There is further evidence of Charles integrating French styles, with the appointment of Louis Grabu as ‘Master of the King’s Musick’, a move that was not particularly popular amongst English musicians, as written by Samuel Pepys in his diary, “Here they talk also how the King’s viallin, – [violinist] – Bannister, is mad that the King hath a Frenchman come to be chief of some part of the King’s musique.”
Pepys himself was not overly keen on the appointment, stating, “to White Hall, and there in the gallery did hear the musick with which the King is presented this night by Monsieur Grebus, the master of his musick; both instrumentall – I think twenty-four violins – and vocall; an English song upon Peace. But, God forgive me! I never was so little pleased with a concert of musick in my life. The manner of setting of words and repeating them out of order, and that with a number of voices, makes me sick, the whole design of vocall musick being lost by it. Here was a great press of people; but I did not see many pleased with it, only the instrumental musick he had brought by practice to play very just.”
It is clear that Grabu’s composition did not focus on the text setting, and instead, was more concerned with the instruments and melodic nature of the voices. Even in later works such as Albion and Albanius, written as a tribute to Charles after his death, Grabu’s poor text setting, likely due to his unfamiliarity with the language, is quite noticeable. The line “We’ll wash away the stain that blots a noble nation” has far too much emphasis on the word “we’ll”, with the note lasting longer than all the others, as well as being higher than the others. The shift of focus onto instrumental music was also a key development in English music, especially with new emerging composers like Pelham Humfrey, and later on, Henry Purcell.
To further understand how musical life changed and developed under Charles II, we can look towards the individual musicians who had a major role within court music, their musical upbringing and education, and the influence they would have on later musicians.
One of the first composers to bring about the new style was Pelham Humfrey, a Chapel Royal chorister born in 1647 who, when his voice broke, was sent to France to continue studying, paid for by the King, before returning, ready to take over the musical scene of London with fresh and bold ideas. Succeeding his father-in-law, Captain (Henry) Cooke as Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal in 1672, Andrew Gant writes, “The main features of the new manner can all be checked off in the music of the curly-haired young Francophile: bold harmonies, expressive writing for solo voice, long anthems made up of short sections contrasting the plangency of the violins up in the gallery with the earthier sound of men down below; above all, the possibilities of the independent bass line.” One of the principle features being the ‘symphony’ – a passage for instruments only; a stark contrast to the ‘symphonies’ of anthems by Cooke and Gibbons, which would merely be a chance for the organist to show off a short flurry of notes on a bright organ stop. Most anthems were now beginning with a derivation of ‘French Overture’ that felt very stately with its triple time metre and dotted rhythms, likely reinforcing the grand nature of the monarchy as being powerful and exotic.
In November 1663, an anthem, written by Humfrey was met with praise by Pepys: ‘…the 51 psalm, made for five voices by one of Captain Cookes boys – a pretty boy, and they say there are four or five of them that can do as much…’
The opening of the symphony and verse from Psalm 51 by Pelham Humfrey, we see a repeating chromatic ‘ground bass’, expressive harmony, as well as idiomatic writing and melodic freedom for the trio of soloists. This format, known as a ‘verse anthem’ which alternated between solo voice(s) and full choir became synonymous with the Reformation period and would later develop and expand further with Purcell who wrote many ‘symphony anthems’ which have larger sections of just instrumental music in addition to ‘verse’ and ‘full choir’. Andrew Gant writes, “The anthem was split into sections and movements, constantly changing tempo, manner and instrumentation, alternating string ‘symphonies’ with solos, duets and trios, grave choral polyphony and a cheery outburst for the whole ensemble at the end, all supported by a ‘continuo’ bass and bursting with fancy new harmonies and show-off passages for the composer’s favourite singers.”
Of course, not all listeners were keen on the inclusion of instrumental sections, and John Evelyn famously said the style was ‘better suiting a Tavern or a play-house, than a church’, and as for the increasing influences of the continent on English music; with it grew an inherent suspicion of foreigners and an increasing fear of Catholicism.