It was my privilege to suggest and organize a Musical Festival of Gibbons' works in Westminster Abbey in 1907. Some of his finest Church music was given by a very large choir, and a beautiful replica in black marble of the bust of the composer, which is in Canterbury Cathedral, was unveiled. It has always seemed to me a reflection upon the Abbey that no memorial to the greatest of its organists—save Purcell—should be found there. This Festival created very great interest, and brought a munificent offer from Mr Crews, a well-known amateur and Master of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, to defray the expense of a bust of the celebrated organist. It is well placed in close proximity to the memorials of his worthy successors, Blow, Purcell, and Croft.
VI. RICHARD DEERING
1580 (?)—1630
In considering the careers and works of the first five musicians on my list of twelve, I have, it is true, been treating of men whose names are to be found in all musical histories. But of the next name on my list I am able to say I am on comparatively new ground. There is nothing so surprising to me as the universal neglect—nay, I may even use the word disdain—with which musical historians of many periods have treated the name of Richard Deering. In common with most people of my own age I knew very little about this composer, and certainly in common with, I venture to say, all my contemporaries, I never heard a note of his music until a few years ago.
The story of my awakening to the real merits of this admirable composer is simple. Looking over the music in the Chapter Library at Westminster, I found among many fine collections of Madrigals—original copies, mostly published in the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries—two sets of Latin Motets in 5 and 6 parts by Richard Deering. They were bound up in covers made out of an illuminated MS. On looking at the bindings, our late Dean, Dr Armitage Robinson (always interested in the Library, and also, I may add, in my musical researches) found that they were part of the Wedding Service of the fourteenth century. The binding was promptly taken off, the Deering books rebound, and handed on to me. I proceeded to score some of the first book—published in 1617—and had not done many bars before it was plain I was indeed about to unearth a treasure. Full of beautiful Harmony and Contrapuntal devices with examples of melodic progressions, new and original, these works were speedily brought to a hearing at my Gresham Lectures, and, with as little delay as possible, edited (with English translations), published, and introduced into the Abbey Services. Since then many Cathedrals and great Churches have used them. The Bach Choir has performed some of them, and Deering's fame has, I hope, been re-established!
I may say, before proceeding to give details of Deering's career, that nearly a hundred years ago an effort was made by a musical amateur to get these Motets scored. By a curious chance I have come into the possession of letters which passed between the owner of copies of these fine things and Mr Sale of Westminster Abbey. The owner was the Rev Thomas Streatfeild, Vicar of Chart Edge, a well-known Kentish antiquary, and he came into possession—probably at a sale of some of the old Deering books—of a set of parts of these Motets. He applied to Mr Sale (a very prominent member of the musical profession, a Lay-Vicar of Westminster Abbey and a principal singer at the "Ancient Concerts") to get these Motets scored for him. A letter from Sale's daughter apologizes for delay, and says "her father does not think it will be worth while to go to any great expense, as he has tried some parts of it (i.e. the music of the Motets) with some who are used to and admire that ancient style of music and they do not form a very high opinion of it!" Curiously enough, a few bars in score of one of the most beautiful Motets was enclosed with a note from a copyist saying that it would take much time and be very expensive. So Deering's Motets were laid to rest again for nearly 100 years. I may add Mr Sale was the music instructor to Queen Victoria when she was a child.
Mr Streatfeild's copies of the 1617 Motets (uncut!) were sold (at his death) by auction, and fetched £4 16s. 0d.
The neglect of Deering is certainly extraordinary. He was, as usual, absurdly criticized by Dr Burney, who spoke of his music as "very sober, innocent, psalmodic, dry, and uninteresting," and further he "was never able to discern in any of his works a single stroke of genius, either in his melody or modulation." And Sir Frederick Ouseley actually writes of his style as "severe and correct, but very dry"! These verdicts amaze me! They are absolutely untrue, at least as regards Deering's great works, his Motets. I question if Burney or Ouseley ever heard one of them. They may have founded their opinion upon some of his less important works, published by Playford some 30 or 40 years after Deering's death, which Playford himself does not vouch for as being certainly by Deering. And, as regards Deering's Fancies, I can hardly believe either Burney or Ouseley had any real knowledge of them, for one which I produced at a University Lecture in 1912 was of a high order of merit.