1647--1674
We have all heard of "Single-speech Hamilton," a Member of Parliament,
who, it is said, made a "single speech," and by it achieved lasting
fame. As a matter of history, Hamilton made other speeches, but it was
by the first that he earned his well-known cognomen. And we have a
somewhat similar example in connection with a celebrated musician, John
Jenkins. Born in 1592, he lived until 1678, and wrote, as North
expresses it, "horse-loads of music." He was most prolific and most
celebrated, and yet until a few years ago, when I revived many of his
compositions--_Dialogues, Fancies for Strings_, and _Latin Motets_--not
a note of his music was heard anywhere, save one little piece. But
this was sung in every school where vocal music was taught--it is the
charming little round _A boat, a boat, haste to the ferry_.
The subject of our present consideration is another example of the same
fate. "Pelham Humfrey, Composer of the Grand Chant" is about all
people know of him. This so-called {96} Grand Chant is known and sung
in every Protestant Church in the world. Humfrey is, however, a worthy
member of the band of musicians whose work I am following, and we will
see what else he did besides writing the Grand Chant.
Born in 1647, he is said to have been a nephew of Colonel John
Humphrey, Bradshaw's sword-bearer.
From the arms which were on his tomb we can learn a little of his
family and forbears--these arms, I regret to say, have long since been
obliterated, in fact they had gone in Sir John Hawkins' time, together
with the epitaph; and at the present time the exact position of the
grave can be only a matter of conjecture.[1] But what was on it has
been preserved to us in a valuable old work, _Keepe's Monumenta
Westmonasteriensia_, 1682. In this work a description is given of the
armorial bearings, and by them we can trace him to an old
Northamptonshire stock. The family is mentioned as being settled in
the County in _The Visitation of Northampton_ of 1564, but had
disappeared from it before the next Visitation some years later.
We know nothing of Pelham Humfrey's life {97} until 1660, the year of
the Restoration, when we find him, at the age of thirteen, entered as
one of the first set of children of the reconstructed Chapel Royal
Choir, under Henry Cooke, generally known as Captain Cooke, who having
fought in the Civil War, obtained his Captain's Commission as early in
the struggle as 1642; and retained his military title for the rest of
his life.
While at the Chapel Royal, Humfrey displayed signs of that precocity
which so often shows itself in the musical genius. He began
composition while yet a boy, and in 1664 we find the words of no fewer
than five of his Anthems published in Clifford's _Divine Services and
Anthems_.
A reference to one of these Anthems is in the _Diary_ of Samuel Pepys,
which contains, by the way, several interesting references to Humfrey's
career. Under date November 22nd, 1663, we find:
At Chapel: I had room in the Privy Seale pew with other gentlemen,
and there heard Dr. Lilligrew preach. The Anthem was good after
Sermon, being the 51st Psalm made for five voices by one of Captain
Cooke's boys, a pretty boy. And they say there are four or five of
them that can do as much. And here I first perceived that the King
is a little Musical and kept good time with his hand all along the
Anthem.
Now that Anthem was written by a Choir-boy {98} in the Royal Chapel,
but it is a remarkable fact, as Pepys says, that he was not the only
boy-composer in the same choir and at the same time. Captain Cooke
appears to have been rarely fortunate in having in his newly-formed
choral body a set of phenomenally gifted boys, and doubtless no small
credit is due to the loyal and gallant musician for the skill and care
he must have devoted to their training.
Captain Cooke must have been a clever teacher and a still cleverer
selector of boys for his choir; and this brilliant little school he
gathered round him (including such names as Humfrey, Blow, and Purcell)
shines out like a beacon light in our musical world. A curious and
interesting fact bearing upon this came to my knowledge quite lately.
A Thesis for a Doctor's degree in the University of Paris (in 1912) was
on the subject of _Captain Cooke's Choir Boys_, and it was a clever yet
concise account of the work done by these three pupils of
Cooke--Humfrey, Blow, and Purcell. English music seems to be looking
up when we find a period of our musical history and three of our past
great musicians taken as the subject for a thesis in a foreign
University!
The same year that witnessed the production of this Anthem was an
all-important one, not only for Humfrey but also for English art. On
{99} leaving the Royal Choir, Charles II sent him abroad to continue
his musical studies; the cost of the trip was paid out of the Secret
Service Fund, and was expended in the following way:
1664. "To defray the charge of his journey into France and Italy
L200." In the two following years also he was granted L100 and L150
respectively.
Most of the time Humfrey spent abroad was passed in Paris with J. B.
Lully, an Italian by birth but a Frenchman by adoption, the most
celebrated dramatic musical composer of his day. He wrote many Operas
in the most varied styles, both grave and gay, was the composer of a
good deal of sacred music, and was also a reformer in Opera-writing; he
introduced the accompanied recitative in place of the Italian
_Recitative secco_, making many changes in the ballets. Of still more
importance was his development of the Overture, for which service he
cannot be too highly valued.
It is very probable that the instruction given by Lully to Humfrey was
less by precept than by example. The pupil listened with eager ears to
his master's music and doubtless often took part in the performance of
it. Under this influence--the influence of the greatest master of
dramatic music of his time--it is not surprising that the already
precocious genius of the young {100} Englishman quickened, and that he
returned to his native country with a different conception of his art.
Another world had been opened up to him whose earliest instruction had,
necessarily, been chiefly confined to the ecclesiastical side of it.
Before his return to England he had been appointed a Gentleman of the
Chapel Royal, in the place of one Thomas Hazard, January, 1667, and he
was duly sworn in the October following. A glance at Pepys' _Diary_
under dates November 1st and 15th, 1667, gives us that shrewd
observer's opinion of our hero as he appears fresh from his Continental
trip.
November 1st, 1667. To Chapel, and heard a fine Anthem made by
Pelham, who is come over.
The entry, however, of a fortnight later is of more interest, as
apparently being Mr Pepys' first personal encounter with him since his
return.
November 15th, 1667. Home, and there I find, as I expected, Mr.
Caesar and little Pelham Humfrey lately returned from France, and
is an absolute Monsieur as full of form and confidence and vanity,
and disparages everything and everybody's skill but his own. But
to hear how he laughs at all the King's Musick 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
Music, how he understands {101} 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. I had
a good dinner for them, a venison pasty and some fowl, and after
dinner we did play, he on the Theorbo, Mr. Caesar on his French
lute, and I on the viol, but made but mean Musique, nor do I see
that this Frenchman do so much wonders on the Theorbo, but without
question, he is a good musician, but his vanity do offend me.
Grebus (or rather Grabu) was the King's Master of the Music. He
displaced Bannister, who was dismissed, according to the historians,
because he championed English violinists and said he preferred them to
Frenchmen. He may have said this, but the real cause of his dismissal
was that he kept back the money which he ought to have paid to the
Private Band! King Charles has often been blamed for dismissing
Bannister on account of his patriotic sentiments and defence of English
players, but this charge is not true.
Returning to Mr Pepys for a record of his next day's doings, November
16, 1667, we find a very interesting reference to Humfrey and a
somewhat scathing criticism from the Diarist:
1667, November 16th. To White Hall, where there is to be a
performance of Music of Pelham's before the King. The company not
come; but I did go into the Music Room where Captain Cooke and many
others, and here I did hear the best and the smallest Organ go that
ever I saw in my life {102} and such a one as by the grace of God I
will have the next year, if I continue in this Condition, whatever
it cost me.
Mr Pepys then records a short walk and talk with Mr Gregory, returning
to Whitehall:
And there got into the theatre room and there heard both the vocall
and instrumentall Music, where the little fellow (Pelham Humfrey)
stood keeping time, but for my part I see no great matter, but
quite the contrary, in both sorts of Music. The composition, I
believe, is very good, but no more of delightfulness to the eare or
understanding, but what is very ordinary.
In addition to being a composer, Humfrey was an accomplished lutenist,
and in the State Papers for the year 1668, under date January 20th, we
find a promotion of his in the Royal Service; the record runs as
follows:
January 20th, 1668. Warrant to pay Pelham Humfreys, Musician in
Ordinary on the Lute, in place of Nich. Sawyer deceased L40 yearly,
and L16 2s. 6d. for Livery.
On May 29th of this same year Mr Pepys again refers to him:
May 29th, 1668. Home, whither by agreement by and by comes Mercer
and Gayet and two gentlemen with them, Mr. Monteith and Pelham, the
{103} former a swaggering young handsome gentleman, the latter a
sober citizen merchant.[2] Both sing, and the latter with great
skill, the other no skill, but a good voice and a good basse, but
used only to tavern tunes; and so I spent all this evening till
eleven at night, singing with them till I was tired of them,
because of the swaggering fellow, tho' the girl Mercer did mightily
commend him before me.
Later in the year (July) another reference is made in the _Diary_:
July 11th, 1668. So home, it being almost night (Mr. Pepys had
been after an espinette at Deptford), and there find in the garden
Pelling, who hath brought Tempest, Wallington, and Pelham to sing,
and there had most excellent Musick late, in the dark with great
pleasure.
Humfrey's Sacred music is a clear evidence of his French experience.
He puts symphonies for strings and is dramatic at times and often
somewhat light. An Anthem _O Praise the Lord_ is a good example of the
latter tendency. There are two short Bass solos, one to the words
_Sing praises lustily_, which is almost like the song of a jovial
sailor! It is in triple time, and is the sort of thing King Charles
would certainly have beaten time to with his hand "all along the
Anthem," in Pepys' words. The Bass solo in the Anthem he {104} wrote
when a boy and before his French training is in a quite different
style, and might have been written by any of our good Cathedral
writers, such as Locke, or Blow, or even Purcell.
In addition to his Sacred works Humfrey wrote three Odes and many
songs. These latter fall under the critical notice of Dr Burney, who
refers to them, I think, rather unfairly and harshly. Speaking of a
collection called _Choice Songs and Aires_, Burney says: "Among these
songs, to the number of near fifty, there is not one air that is either
ingenious, graceful, cheerful or solemn: an insipid languor or vulgar
pertness pervades the whole. From Pelham Humphry, whose Church Music
is so excellent, I own I expected to find originality, or merit of some
kind or other; but his songs are quite on a level with the rest."
Burney's remarks are not only spiteful, but untrue. To mention only
one song, Humfrey's setting of _Where the Bee Sucks_, which he wrote
for Dryden and Davenant's altered version of _The Tempest_ (the oldest
setting but one which we possess), is charming, both as regards melody
and harmony. The first part is in the minor key, for which Humfrey
seems--like Purcell--to have a weakness. There is an effective change
to the Tonic Major at _Merrily, merrily shall I live now_, with a most
striking and delicious drop of a {105} 7th (I expect Burney regarded
this as a crudity), To me the song seems one of the best of the time.
Humfrey went on adding rapidly to his honours. On January 24th, 1672,
he was elected one of the wardens of "the Corporation for regulating
the Art and Science of Musick," and in July of the same year his old
master, Captain Cooke, died; his death being accelerated--so Antony
Wood tells us--by chagrin at finding himself getting supplanted by his
old pupil. This I do not believe: Cooke would have had a soul above
such foibles, and had too many successful pupils to be jealous of poor
little Humfrey.
However this may be, Humfrey succeeded him as Master of the Children of
the Chapel Royal, and later, jointly with Thomas Purcell, he was
appointed Composer in Ordinary for the Violins to His Majesty.
It was in this year, 1672, that he wrote a charming little song called
_Wherever I am and Whatever I do_. It was written for Dryden's
_Conquest of Granada_, produced in that year.
Nothing of any importance is chronicled of him for the last two years
of his all too short life. He died at Windsor on July 13th, 1674, and
was buried in the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, near the south east
door. His last will and {106} testament, witnessed by his old
schoolfellow, Dr Blow, is interesting:
Aprill ye 23rd, 74.
Bee itt knowne to all people whomsoever itt may Concerne that I
leave my deare wife my sole executrix and Mrs. of all I have in the
world after those few debts I owe are payd:
I only desire that 3 Legacyes may bee given that is to say to my
cousin Betty Jelfe: to Mr. Blow ad to Besse Gill each of them
twenty shillings to buy them Rings.
Pell. Humfrey.