The Great Musicians: Purcell

by William Hayman Cummings

Anthony Wood, who lived during the Protectorate, tells the following characteristic anecdote of Cromwell:—

"In October, 1659, James Quin, M.A., and one of the senior students of Christ Church, a Middlesex man born, but son of Walter Quin, of Dublin, died in a crazed condition. A. W. had some acquaintance with him, and hath several times heard him sing, with great admiration. His voice was a bass, and he had a great command of it. 'Twas very strong and exceeding trouling, but he wanted skill, and could scarce sing in consort. He had been turned out of his student's place by the visitors, but being well acquainted with some great men of those times that loved music, they introduced him into the company of Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, who loved a good voice and instrumental music well. He heard him sing with very great delight, liquored him with sack, and in conclusion, said: 'Mr. Quin, you have done very well, what shall I do for you?' To which Quin made answer, with great compliments, of which he had command, with a great grace, that 'Your Highness would be pleased to restore him to his student's place,' which he did accordingly, and so kept it to his dying day."

It must not be forgotten that although during the Commonwealth musicians found it difficult to earn their bread in consequence of the prohibition of all public exhibition of their executive skill, yet many of the learned and erudite musical treatises which have been handed down to us were published at that time. From this we may be sure that the musical predilections of Cromwell were regarded with secret hope by the few musicians who were able privately to pursue their calling; and indeed public signs were not wanting during the latter years of the Protector's life, that had he been spared, the art of music would probably have received more emphatic and distinct assistance at his hands. In 1656 he granted a licence to Sir William Davenant to open a kind of theatre[2] for "an entertainment in declamation and music after the manner of the ancients;" and later on he licensed certain theatrical performances at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane.

The extreme Puritan party did, however, so effectually destroy and put down all Church music,[3] deeming organs and service-books superstitious and ungodly, that at the Restoration, when the authorities set about re-establishing musical services in the cathedrals, it was impossible to find either instruments, books, or singers necessary for the purpose; and, indeed, out of the large musical establishment of Charles I., only three men—Dr. Wilson, Christopher Gibbons, and Henry Lawes—came forward at the Restoration to claim their former appointments.

We get a further insight into the condition of Church music at the Restoration, from Matthew Locke's Present Practice of Musick Vindicated, published in 1673, wherein he says, "For above a year after the opening of His Majestie's Chappel, the orderers of the musick there were necessitated to supply superior parts of the music with cornets and men's feigned voices, there being not one lad for all that time capable of singing his part readily."

An examination of the old MS. copies of anthems composed by the organists and singing-men of the various cathedrals in the reign of Charles II., shows that a dearth of singing-boys (trebles) was general throughout the kingdom, the compositions being chiefly for men's voices only.

From the preceding slight and brief sketch of the state of music during the Commonwealth, it will be evident that the Puritan rule was most unpropitious for the art; with its professors banned, and its public performance well-nigh extinguished, music might perhaps have been expected to have died an unnatural death; but heaven-born, it retained a vital spark which needed only the breath of freedom and gentle encouragement to foster it into a flame.

With the death of Cromwell, the sun of the Puritan world vanished, but happily at the same time a new star in the musical firmament arose. Cromwell died in 1658, at Whitehall, and in the same year, within a bow-shot of the Palace, was born the favoured child of the muses, destined to raise the musical fame of England to a height it had never before attained, and by his beautiful creations to make for himself a name of undying fame.

This welcome prodigy was Henry Purcell, his birth-place St. Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster. The precise day of his birth there is unknown, but there is no doubt about the year 1658. Some remains of the house are still standing. A sketch of it and the adjoining premises was made on the 15th of April, 1845, by R. W. Withall.