Jeremiah Clarke: a tercentenary tribute

Errata: p. 30 'O Harmony, where now's thy power' is a New Year's ode, not a birthday ode. This ode does not share any music with 'Pay your thanks'. Chris Roberts suggests that the music of 'Pay your thanks', is by Daniel Purcell, and not by Clarke. p. 31: RJS Stevens's comment 'Beautiful Ritornel in Bflat major here' applies to 'Let nature smile', not 'O Harmony, where now's thy power'. Figure 1 on p. 31 is incorrect. A corrected version of the figure is added on the final page of this PDF. Jeremiah Clarke (c. 1674-1707) A tercentenary tribute Bryan White and Andrew Woolley The anniversaries of prominent composers are big business these days. They provide an excuse for radio stations to play a great deal of popular music (think of Radio 3’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in 2006), encourage new, or re-releases of recordings, and sometimes, as was the case of the tri-centenary of Henry Purcell’s death in 1995, inspire noteworthy scholarly endeavour. In many ways, however, the big composers are those who require least the anniversary spotlight, and it is minor composers that need to be picked out from the shadows from time to time, both to see what they themselves have to offer, as well as to throw a bit more light on the context of the more important figures of the same milieu. Jeremiah Clarke, one of the most significant figures in the generation following Purcell, is just such a composer. As far as we have been able to discover, the 300th anniversary of his death, which came by his own hand on 1 December 1707, has gone largely unmarked, apart from a spot on the Early Music Show on Radio 3 in August.1 Clarke contributed works of considerable quality to most of the important genres of his day including anthems, theatre music (songs, theatre tunes and a masque), odes and keyboard pieces. He is, of course, most famous for the Prince of Denmark’s March, which has accompanied countless brides to the altar. But there is much more to his music, and we hope this brief exploration of his keyboard music by Andrew Woolley and his odes by Bryan White, will lead a few more people to look in between his appearance at innumerable weddings, and his own funeral (despite the nature of his death, he was buried in the crypt at St Paul’s), to the many interesting works he left behind. Jeremiah Clarke the Keyboard Player Jeremiah Clarke’s career as a professional musician appears to have begun in 1692 when, shortly after leaving the Chapel Royal as a chorister, he was appointed organist of Winchester College.2 His skills at the keyboard were probably considerable in view of later appointments. He probably assisted his former teacher, John Blow, at St Paul’s Cathedral in the late 1690s, and was eventually appointed vicar-choral there in 1699; on the title-page of Clarke’s posthumous collection of harpsichord music, Choice Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinnet (1711), he is described as ‘Composer & Organist’ of St Paul’s. In May 1704, Clarke also became an organist of the Chapel Royal, sharing the post with William Croft. There are no contemporary accounts of Clarke’s keyboard playing known, although in the late eighteenth century Philip Hayes noted that Clarke, ‘besides a most happy native genius for composition’, ‘was esteemed the most Elegant player of church music in the Kingdom’.3 Like many important Restoration organists, however, there are no surviving organ voluntaries by him to give us an idea of his playing. Organ voluntaries by only a handful of Restoration keyboard players survive, probably because they largely improvised and used writtendown voluntaries for teaching.4 Over half of the voluntaries that survive were composed by Blow whose style of playing presumably influenced Clarke’s.5 A significant body of harpsichord music by Clarke survives, however, most of which appears in the Choice Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinett (1711).6 This is a small collection of 25 pieces 25 organised by key, in ascending order, beginning with ‘gamut’: G major, A major, B minor, C minor, C major and D major. The term ‘suite’ is not used, but the seven C major pieces seem to form two suites, the first consisting of ‘Almand’, ‘Corant’, and ‘A Iigg’, and the second consisting of ‘An Entry’, ‘Corant’, ‘Minuet’ and ‘Donawert March’. The remaining groupings also appear to make satisfactory suites. It was common for professional keyboard players in the late seventeenth century to teach the harpsichord or popular bentside spinet to amateur pupils, and Clarke may have composed these generally simple pieces for their use. From what we know of English keyboard players of the period, it is likely that he had a number of aristocratic pupils; Henry Purcell had at least two such pupils in the 1690s.7 Only a small number of pieces by Clarke out of those that appear in Choice Lessons circulated in manuscripts, notably the pieces in C major and C minor. In some instances they circulated with texts independent of the print, and are also found together with different pieces in the same key, which are anonymous but could be by Clarke. A particularly intriguing instance of this occurs in GB-Cfm, MU. MS 653, a manuscript probably dating from the second decade of the eighteenth century, where Clarke’s C major almand and first corant in Choice Lessons appear anonymously and are followed by a ground in the same key. They are preceded by a chaconne attributed to Clarke in other manuscripts and a prelude elsewhere attributed to Croft, also in C major. The manuscript copy of Clarke’s C major almand is notable in that almost the entire second strain is different to that printed in Choice Lessons; only the first bar and the penultimate bars are the same. There are also minor variants between the printed and manuscript sources of both the corant and almand. The variants are numerous but are typical of English keyboard sources of the period. They are also of a common type: on the whole they concern the surface details of the pieces such as the accompaniment figures, cadential figures, and melodic or rhythmic details of the right-hand part. Some of these variants might have resulted from scribal errors or reflect composer revisions. However, this is unlikely to be true for all of them. The manuscript versions appear not to have any wrong notes or have particularly inferior readings and it is difficult to see how they have been corrupted. The second strain of the C major almand in the manuscript suggests that Clarke may have revised the pieces. This is a possibility in view of the different versions of the second strain of the almand. However, the variants between the versions of the first strain of the almand and the entire corant are of an essentially trivial nature, and it is difficult to see how these might 26 have resulted from the composer purposefully changing his mind about his pieces. Another explanation is that keyboard composers memorised their pieces, and that when they came to copy them out for patrons and pupils, they produced slightly different versions of them each time. The two variant versions of Clarke’s C major almand and corant could therefore stem from lost independent copies of these pieces copied by Clarke. I am tempted to suggest this as an explanation for the two versions of the second strain of the almand as well, and that both resulted from independent ‘workings-out’ of the piece that Clarke performed and wrote down from memory. In view of this, the copies of the almand and corant in MU. MS 653 should not necessarily be seen as ‘rejected’ versions but as alternatives. Stephen Rose has pointed out the importance of memory for seventeenth-century musicians in Germany, noting the particular importance of it for keyboard players who would probably have been able to perform complete polyphonic pieces without the need of notation.8 A similar situation is likely to have been true in England where the ability to improvise was important for professional organists. For instance, the early eighteenth century writer Roger North called ‘Voluntary upon an Organ’, ‘the consumate office of a musitian.’9 Keyboard players probably memorised melodic and harmonic formulas to help them perform their pieces and for when they came to write them down. These formulae (such as cadential figuration) may have been to some extent interchangeable, so that when composers wrote-out their pieces, they used them indiscriminately, resulting in the circulation of variant versions of a piece. Clarke is by no means unusual for having keyboard pieces that survive in different versions in important sources. For example, similar comparisons can be made between copies of Henry Purcell’s keyboard pieces as they appear in an autograph manuscript (GB-Lbl, Mus. MS 1), in Henry Playford’s The Second Part of Musick’s Hand-maid (1689), and in the composer’s posthumous A Choice Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinet (1696). 10 It is also worth returning to the anonymous ground that appears after Clarke’s C major almand and corant in Cfm, MU. MS 653. Barry Cooper has pointed out that a version of this piece was printed in the late eighteenth century attributed to ‘I Clarke’, and the grouping in MU. MS 653 also suggests that it, in at least one of its guises, is probably Clarke’s work.11 Its bass pattern is a variant of the one famously used by Monteverdi in the chaconne ‘Zefiro torna’, and was popular throughout the seventeenth century. There are no seventeenth century sources for this particular keyboard setting, although it appears to have been a popular lesson in England during eighteenth century, more so than the pieces in Choice Lessons to judge from the number of its manuscript sources. The piece exists in three versions known to me. The copies in the print, in US-Lauc P613 M4 1725, which may date from the second decade of the eighteenth century or slightly earlier, and in Cfm MU. MS 668 (late eighteenth century), are essentially the same.12 However, both the settings in Cfm, MU. MS 653, and Foundling Museum MS 2/E/Miscellany (vol. III) have unique strains. The MU. MS 653 version is the shortest at 13 strains and has two strains not found in the other versions of the piece. It is the furthest removed from the printed version, and only 6 of its strains, including two that are variants, are shared with it. The copy in the Foundling Museum, which may date from the 1720s, appears to be an intermediate version. It has 17 strains in total, only three of which are unique; ten of them are shared with the print, whilst another ten are shared with the MU. MS 653 version (including variants). This complicated situation may be summarised in the following table. Explanation of the table: Each strain of the Cfm MU. MS 653 version is numbered 1-13, and additional strains not found in this source are given letters of the alphabet. * = strain unique to the source; † = strain shared only between the printed version and the Foundling Museum MS version. 27 The additional strains found in the later copies of the piece may have been composed by copyists or keyboard players other than Clarke. Something similar may also have occurred to another long-lived English ground, John Blow’s setting of ‘The Hay’s’, which exists in as many versions as there are sources.13 Given that the version of the ground in the print and in Cfm MU. MS 668 is the only one with an attribution, it may be reasonable to think this is the version closest to Clarke. However, it also includes some of the more insipid strains, and is a little directionless as it lacks strains 10-13, which provide the other two versions with a fitting conclusion in 6/4 time. On balance, I would suggest that the revision of the piece in Cfm MU. MS 653 is closest to a copy made by Clarke. As an appendix to this article we include a transcription of the ground as it appears in MU. MS 653 alongside the variant versions of Clarke’s C major almand and corant that the manuscript contains. Several of Clarke’s most popular pieces also exist in multiple versions for keyboard, probably because different keyboard players composed their own settings. One of these was the Prince of Denmark’s March, Clarke’s best-known piece since it was published in the late nineteenth century as an organ voluntary by Henry Purcell. A contemporary five-part setting of the piece survives, possibly for an orchestra of oboes, bassoons, trumpet and strings, and it is thought that this was the version originally composed by Clarke.14 The melody was also printed in The Dancing Master (10th edn., 1698) and as a song in John Gay’s Polly.15 A keyboard setting, probably by Clarke himself, was included in John Young’s A Choice Collection of Ayres for the Harpsichord or Spinett (1700), and in John Walsh’s The Second Book of the Harpsicord Master (1700). However, several manuscript versions of the piece are completely different. One of these appears in a littleknown keyboard manuscript dating c. 1703-6, probably in the hand of the London harpsichordist and composer Robert King, where it is without attribution and is entitled ‘The Temple’.16 The unique setting in this manuscript is probably by King, and its title, which also appears in The Dancing Master and in John Gay’s song setting, may be an indication that a dance was composed for the piece; dance titles were often prefixed with ‘the’, such as ‘The Spanheim’ and ‘The Marlborough’. Most of Clarke's surviving keyboard music, like that of his contemporaries such as Blow, Purcell, and Croft, is small-scale and was probably written largely with patrons and pupils in mind. What is particularly regrettable is that no voluntaries by Clarke are known. These might give us a clearer indication of his capabilities as a performer. Of 28 Clarke’s generation, only Croft (1678-1727) wrote a sizeable number of organ works. Nevertheless, Clarke wrote a good number of attractive pieces, which deserve to be better-known and performed. Undoubtedly they would suit today's harpsichord students, but in the hands of a modern performer, many of them could well fit the demands of a concert setting or a recording. Jeremiah Clarke’s Odes According to the New Grove article, Clarke wrote at least ten odes, of which part or all of eight are extant. These works cover more or less the whole of his professional life, though aspects of their chronology remain uncertain. His earliest dateable ode, ‘Come, come along for a dance and a song’ is also the best known (a modern edition by Walter Bergman was published in 1961) and is the only one to have been recorded.18 According to a note added by William Croft to a manuscript copy of the ode, it was ‘compos’d by Mr Jeremiah Clarke, (when organist of Winchester Colledge) upon ye death of ye famous Mr Henry Purcell, and perform’d upon the stage in Druery Lane play house’.19 Clarke’s name appears in the ‘long rolls’ of Winchester College for the years 1692-95,20 and he must have started work there around the time of his dismissal from the Chapel Royal in the spring of 1692 when his voice changed.21 Clarke was a chorister in the Chapel Royal from at least 1685, when he is noted as having sung at James II’s coronation. While at the Chapel he was a pupil of John Blow, Master of the Choristers, and would no doubt have come into personal contact with Purcell. Certainly his music shows both the direct and indirect influence of the latter, and the quality and expressive intensity of ‘Come, come along for a dance and a song’ suggests a great affection for the older composer. The work, scored for pairs of trumpets, recorders and oboes, kettle drums, four-part strings, soloists and chorus is on a grand scale, similar to the Cecilian odes written for London at this time. It has a semidramatic form, well suited to a performance in the playhouse which Croft’s note suggests. A theatrical performance is also indicated by a nineteenth-century copy of the ode in the hand of the organist and composer (best known for his glees) R.J.S. Stevens (1757-1837).22 Several significant variants make it clear that Stevens did not copy from Add. MS 30934, and his source is not known. Stevens provided the text of the ode before the music. It includes two stage directions (both repeated in the score); one at the beginning of the text: ‘Enter several Shepherds and Shepherdesses in gay habits’, and the other partway through the work: ‘Enter two in mourning’. ‘Come, come along’ contains the most impressive and colourful choral writing to be found in any of Clarke’s odes and throughout the work there is an even and high-level of invention. Particularly striking is an instrumental passage entitled ‘Mr Purcell’s Farewell’ for trumpets, recorders and strings. Here the trumpets play in the minor, a rare occurrence in this period, since the natural trumpet was restricted to the notes of the harmonic series, and therefore better suited to the major key. Clarke is likely to have been only 21 or so years old at the time he composed ‘Come, come along’, and his trumpet writing betrays both the boldness and inexperience of youth. In respect of the latter, he writes several notes for the trumpets which were probably unplayable. This same inexperience is found in the trumpet writing of another remarkable work by Clarke, his ‘Song on the Assumption’.23 This is an ode-like setting of an abridged version of Richard Crashaw’s poem ‘On the Glorious Assumption of the Blessed Virgin’.24 Both its date and the purpose have puzzled musicologists, though Watkins Shaw has suggested that it was ‘probably written a year or two earlier’ than ‘Come, come along’, presumably because it shared with that work writing for the trumpet that is apparently unplayable (the trumpet writing in the ‘Song’ is even more unsuitable for the instrument than that in ‘Come, come along’). This conclusion seems justified when one examines Clarke’s subsequent odes, four of which employ trumpets (including ‘Now Albion, raise thy drooping head’ of 1696), the parts of which are consistent with the limitations of the natural trumpet. The text of the ‘Song’ has been described as ‘overtly Catholic’25 though Crashaw may still have been an Anglican at the time he wrote it. He converted to Roman Catholicism sometime between 1643 and 1645, but his interest in female saints and his devotion to the Virgin was not exceptional in the Laudian circles at Peterhouse College, Cambridge where he was a fellow.26 Nevertheless, the ‘Song’ has strong Catholic overtones, and at first glance, it is hard to imagine why Clarke would have chosen to set it given the prevailing anti-Catholic fervour of the period. A closer reading, however, does suggest a possible reason: a funeral elegy for Queen Mary. Among several passages of the poem, the opening lines are suggestive: ‘Hark she is call’d, the parting hour is come, / Take thy farwel poor world, heaven must go home.’ Towards the end of the poem Mary is named for the first time: ‘Maria, Men and Angels sing, / Maria Mother of our King’. This is, of course, the version of the name often used in the odes for Queen Mary’s birthday set by Purcell. If this is the inspiration for the setting of the Crashaw’s poem, it would indeed have preceded ‘Come, come along’ by about a year, since the queen died on 28 December 1694. As with the passages of over-ambitious trumpet writing, we may imagine that Clarke, in youthful enthusiasm, responded to the elegiac elements in Crashaw’s poem, and overlooked those phrases that might sit more uneasily in a memorial for a protestant queen. One other aspect of the ‘Song’ would seem to mark it out as an early work: its string scoring. One other aspect of the ‘Song’ would seem to mark it out as an early work: its string scoring. Clarke writes for two violins, two violas and two basses. This is probably a development of the five-part scoring (two violins, two violas and bass) introduced into England by G. B. Draghi in his setting of Dryden’s ‘Song for St Cecilia’s Day, 1687’. Draghi’s scoring was subsequently taken up by Purcell in two of his birthday odes for Queen Mary, ‘Now does the glorious day appear’ (1689) and ‘Arise, my muse’ (1690). After 1690 Purcell returned to four-part string textures, and Draghi’s Italinate scoring was little imitated by other English composers. Clarke, however, was clearly experimenting with texture in the ‘Song’, for the opening symphony, in addition to two trumpets, boasts divisi on each of the two violin and viola parts, and two antiphonal bass lines, one of which itself divides. Elsewhere in the work he includes a passage for two treble instruments, clearly designated ‘Flutes’ (i.e. recorders), accompanied by an undesignated, figured continuo line in the C3 clef with a range from f sharp to d", which may be for basset recorder.27 What sort of institution would have been able to provide the musicians to perform such a work? In London the court music, and the no doubt related musicians who undertook the yearly Cecilian odes, could have performed the ‘Song’, but the text would probably have been unacceptable there. In 1694, Clarke was at Winchester College, but we have virtually no information on its musical establishment. From 1700-1704, Vaughan Richardson mounted yearly Cecilian odes there, including works scored for recorders and trumpets, but he seems to have drafted in both a professional vocalist and trumpeter from London to complete the forces.28 Whether Clarke’s ‘Song’ represents an earlier practice of performing odes at Winchester cannot be determined with the present evidence. As likely as not the work was never performed, since crucial material in the opening symphony (a fanfare figure oscillating between d' and e', and f' sharp and g') simply could not be played on the natural trumpet (See fig. 1) Before leaving the ‘Song on the Assumption’ behind as an example of both Clarke’s ambition and inexperience, it is worth considering the range of his bass lines, which in all of his D major odes – apart from ‘Come, come along’ – exploit the low AA, one octave below the bottom space of the bass staff. He 29 uses this note in ‘Tell the world’ (1697) and the ‘Barbadoes Song’ (1703), in both cases in the opening symphony (and more widely in the ‘Song’). He was apparently writing for the great bass viol, tuned to AA,29 and which, to judge from the ‘Barbadoes Song’, continued in use into the eighteenth century. Clarke’s fondness for this note is exceptional, since it is infrequently used by either Purcell or Blow, for instance, though the latter does indicate a ‘double bass’ (presumably a great bass viol) in his anthem ‘Lord, who shall dwell in they tabernacle?’.30 Clarke probably returned to London sometime around the end of 1695 and in the spring of the next year set the text ‘Now Albion, raise thy drooping head’, which celebrated William III’s ‘happy deliverance’ from a Jacobite plot.31 The ode once again employs substantial forces – two trumpets, two oboes, four-part strings, soloists and choir – though it is notably less ambitious than ‘Come, come along’ or the ‘Song on the Assumption’. It does, however, show Clarke’s improved confidence in writing for the trumpet, probably as a result of the performance of ‘Come, come along’, since he does not include any notes that are unplayable on the instrument. In the following year Clarke was selected as the composer for the London Cecilian celebrations held at Stationers’ Hall, for which he set Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast. It is most unfortunate that the music is lost; given the profile of the event, which drew works of the greatest quality out of composers such as Purcell, Blow, Draghi and Eccles, we may imagine that Clarke attempted an ambitious setting, and one that may well have seen a return to the inspired choral writing of ‘Come, come along’. He would certainly have been challenged by the text, one of the longest of those prepared for the Cecilian celebrations, and, along with Dryden’s ode of 1687, the finest. It received two further performances subsequent to St Cecilia’s Day, at the second of which (held at York Buildings) another work by Clarke was also performed, described as ‘a new pastoral on the peace’.32 The Peace of Ryswick (signed on 20 September 1697), which brought to an end the war between Britain and her allies, and France, was commemorated by an outpouring of compositions – odes, anthems and semi-theatrical pieces – from several prominent composers of whom Clarke was one. Two works found in Bodleian Library Tenbury MS 1232 are candidates for Clarke’s pastoral upon the peace: ‘Pay your thanks’, a modest setting for four-part strings and voices, and the ode ‘Tell the world’. Although Clarke’s name is not found on the former, some of its music is reused in his 1706 birthday ode to Queen Anne, ‘O Harmony, where’s now they power’, so that it can be attributed to him 30 with some confidence.33 Christopher Gammon has recently demonstrated that the text of ‘Pay your thanks’ comes from Thomas D’Urfey’s dramatic opera Cinthia and Endimion, which opened at Drury Lane theatre in December 1696.34 In MS 1232 the work is given the title ‘Upon the peace’, but this appears to have been added by William Croft, perhaps at the time he collected it with eight other items (five in total by Clarke) into a single binding, which may have been after 1714 (i.e. at the same time he compiled GB-Lbl Add. MS 30934, discussed below). D’Urfey’s opera has hitherto been attributed primarily to Daniel Purcell, but Gammon’s discovery suggests Clarke played a significant role as well.35 The text has nothing to do with peace, and I would suggest that ‘Pay your thanks’ is not part of the ‘pastoral on the peace’, but comes directly from D’Urfey’s dramatic opera. In contrast, ‘Tell the world’, which includes lines such as ‘Great Ceasar[’]s come crowned with olive branches’ and ‘Europe is at ease’, clearly commemorates the Peace, a fact confirmed by Croft’s annotation: ‘This piece was composed by Mr Jer Clarke upon ye peace of Reswick and was performed at Drury Lane Playhouse’. In fact, only half of Croft’s annotation appears to be correct, since The London Gazette reports that the ‘pastoral on the peace’, was performed at York buildings. Croft’s error once again is probably a result of the distance between the annotation and the performance. He seems to have confused it with ‘Come, come along’, the annotation of which in GB-Lbl Add. MS 30934 (another composite manuscript collected together by Croft after 171436) shares the same form of words. ‘Tell the world’ is elaborately scored, sharing the same instrumentation as ‘Now Albion, raise thy drooping head’, but with the further addition of kettle drums. The most grand of Clarke’s extant odes is the ‘Barbadoes Song’, composed, as another note by Croft tells us, ‘for the Gentlemen of the Island of Barbadoes and p[e]rform[e]d to them att Stationers Hall’.37 The gentleman were probably overseas merchants trading in Barbados, and the ode is an address to ‘the great rulers of the sky’ to ‘no more with pestilential flash or dire disease infest the prostrate natives of our sunny shore’. It has been suggested that the poem might commemorate the devastating storm that struck England in November 1703.38 However, the text refers directly to the island of Barbados, and the accounts of the Stationers’ Company record a payment on 20 January 1703 for ‘setting the Hall to the Barbado’s Gent’ and the receipt on 9 February ‘for the use of the Hall for the Barbadoes Gentlemen’ of £5.07.06.39 The event was doubtless much like both Cecilian and county feasts (think of Purcell’s Yorkshire Feast Song) held in London at this time. One copy of the text survives.40 It was probably printed to be circulated at the performance at Stationers’ Hall, which itself was probably followed by an elaborate dinner for the merchants. The work is scored for pairs of trumpets, oboes and recorders, kettledrums, strings, soloists and chorus. It was probably on the same scale as the performance of an ode by Philip Hart held only a few months later at Stationers’ Hall for which ‘The Number of Voices and Instruments in [the] Entertainment is about 60’.41 The ‘Barbadoes Song’ is certainly worthy of a modern revival. The colourful score includes a vivid depiction of blustering winds, a bass solo with string tremolo clearly based on Purcell’s music for the Cold Genius in the ‘Frost Scene’ of King Arthur, and much other attractive music. Of the two remaining extant odes to be considered (apart from Alexander’s Feast, several other Clarke odes are lost), the New Year’s ode for 1706, ‘O Harmony, where’s now thy power?’, which as we have seen, reuses material from ‘Pay your thanks’, is the most modest and lightly scored (for recorders, strings and voices only) of Clarke’s odes. It exists in two copies: one, an early eighteenth-century score in the Bodleian Library, and a second, in the hand of the R.J.S. Stevens, in the British Library. On the title page of the latter, Add. MS 31813, Stevens reports that it was copied ‘from single parts’. The score includes the name ‘Mr Banister’ under the violin part of the opening symphony (John Banister II, 1662-1736), shows a passage in which the strings are reduced to single players on each part, and designates all of the vocal soloists.42 At the end of the copy Stevens notes ‘The Flutes, alto chorus voice[,] second violin parts lost supplied by R.J.S. Stevens’. Performance parts from late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England are very rare, and information found in them can sometimes be of great value in examining issues of performance practice. To my knowledge, no edition of ‘O Harmony, where’s now thy power?’ has been attempted, and it may be that a careful examination and comparison of the two sources will reveal valuable information, particularly with respect to the set of parts from which Stevens worked. Stevens seems to have admired Clarke’s music (for example, he annotates the text of ‘O Harmony’ with the note ‘Beautiful Ritornel in Bflat major here’), and he copied out a significant number of his large-scale works from early sources that are now lost. In addition to ‘Come, come along’, he copied Clarke’s ode for the birthday of Anne, ‘Let nature smile’, working from a source he described as: ‘Jeremiah Clarkes copy so mutilated and torn, that I was obliged to end my copy, in the middle of this grand chorus’.43 The date of the work, which is scored for a trumpet, pairs of recorders and oboes, kettledrums, soloists and chorus, is unknown. At first glance, the text of the ode seems helpful, if not specific, in establishing the date. Rosamund McGuinness has argued, on the strength of the passage In her brave offspring still she’ll live. Nor must she bless our age alone, But to succeeding Ages give Heirs to her virtues and throne. that the text probably pre-dates the death of Anne’s last child, the Duke of Gloucester in July of 1700.44 The lack of an explicit mention of Anne as Queen might make February of 1700 the most likely date for the ode. However, in Stevens’ copy of the text, which precedes the score, the name ‘Elford’ is assigned to the solo setting of these lines. Richard Elford was a singing-man at Durham Cathedral until 1699, and was admitted as a probationer vicar choral at St Paul’s Cathedral on 26 March 1700.45 He did not join the Chapel Royal until 1702, and a notice in The Post Boy in December of that year indicates that Elford had ‘never but once Sung in Publick’ before. It seems likely, therefore, that the ode commemorates one of Anne’s birthdays between 1703 and 1707. Clarke’s odes remain the least examined area of his output. They are uneven in quality, but when he is at his strongest, as in ‘Come, come along’, his music can sit comfortably alongside the court odes of Purcell and Blow. The sources of Clarke’s odes raise many interesting questions of performance practice and provenance, and are likely to reward further study. We hope that the tercentenary of his death may inspire further examination of his work. Figure 1 The opening Symphony of ‘A Song on the Assumption’, J. Clarke, GB-Ob MS Tenbury 1226 31 Almand (GB-Cfm MU. MS 653) 32 Corant (GB-Cfm MU. MS 653), 33 Ground (GB-Cfm MU. MS 653) 34 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 36 Leeds Baroque orchestra and chorus gave a performance of Clarke’s ‘Pay your thanks’ and ‘Tell the world’ on 11 November. It is always dangerous to suggest that something has not been done. The authors would be grateful for any information on work or events marking the centenary of Clarke’s death. W. Shaw, C. Powell and H. D. Johnstone, ‘Clarke, Jeremiah’, Grove Music Online (http://www.grovemusic.com); H. D. Johnstone, ‘Clarke, Jeremiah’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (http://www.oxforddnb.com). [ODNB] GB-Lbl Add. MS 33235, f. 2. On this point, see P. Holman, Henry Purcell (Oxford, 1994), 101. See John Blow. Complete Organ Music, ed. B. Cooper, Musica Britannica 69 (London, 1996). GB-Lbl, Pr. Bk. k. 10. a. 16; see Jeremiah Clarke. Seven Suites, ed. J. Harley (London, 1985) and Jeremiah Clarke. Miscellaneous Pieces, ed. J. Harley (London, 1988). For the sources of Clarke’s harpsichord music, see B. Hodge, ‘English Harpsichord Repertoire’ (Ph. D. diss., University of Manchester, 1989). See M. Burden, ‘“He Had the Honour to be Your Master”: Lady Rhoda Cavendish’s Music Lessons with Henry Purcell’, Music and Letters, 76 (1995), 532-39 and F. Zimmerman, Henry Purcell (Philadelphia, 2/1983), 227-9. ‘Memory and the Early Musician’, Early Music Performer, 13 (2004), 3-8. J. Wilson, Roger North on Music (London, 1959), 136. See Henry Purcell. Eight Suites, ed. H. Ferguson (London, 1964), Henry Purcell. Miscellaneous Keyboard Pieces, ed. H. Ferguson (London, 1964), and Twenty Keyboard Pieces. Henry Purcell and one piece by Orlando Gibbons, ed. D. Moroney (London, 1999). The Compleat Tutor for the Harpsichord or Spinnet (London, [c. 1770]), 8-10; see English Solo Keyboard Music of the Middle and Late Baroque (New York, 1989), 143. I am grateful to Harry Johnstone for drawing my attention to Cfm, MU. MS 668. See John Blow. Complete Harpsichord Music, ed. R. Klakowich Musica Britannica 73 (London, 1998), no. 18. See C. Cudworth and F. Zimmerman, ‘The Trumpet Voluntary’, Music and Letters, 41 (1960), 342-48. See J. Barlow (ed.). The Complete Country Dance Tunes from Playford’s Dancing Master (1651- ca. 1728) (London, 1985), no. 473; Cudworth and Zimmerman, ‘The Trumpet Voluntary’, 345. GB-AY, D/DR 10/ 6a, ff. [5v-6]. For a discussion of this manuscript, see my forthcoming Ph. D. thesis, ‘English Keyboard Manuscripts and their Context, c. 1660-1720’ (University of Leeds, 2008). See William Croft. Complete Organ Works, ed. Richard Platt (Oxford, 1976). Odes on the death of Henry Purcell, Parley of Instruments Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Roy Goodman and Peter Holman, dirs, English Orpheus 12 (Hyperion: CDA66578, 1993) GB-Lbl Add. MS 30934. A. Ashbee and D. Lasocki, et.al., A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485-1714 [BDECM] (Aldershot, 1998), 254-5. A Ashbee, Records of English Court Music, ii (Snodland, 1987), 45. GB-Lbl Add. MS 31812. Stevens dated his copy 1828. Two manuscript copies of the work survive: GB-Ob MS Tenbury 1226, which may be an autograph, and a later copy by Thomas Barrow: GB-Ob MS Tenbury 1175. I am grateful for James Hume for making his edition of the ‘Song’, completed earlier this year as part of his Masters work at the University of Manchester, available to me. 24 The poem was first published in 1646 in Steps to the temple: Sacred Poems, with other delights of the Muses. A third edition was published in 1690. 25 Johnstone, ‘Clarke, Jeremiah’, ODNB 26 T. Healy, ‘Crashaw, Richard’, ODNB 27 David Lasocki has suggested to me that the f sharp would have been difficult or impossible on the basset recorder. Given the experimental and inexperienced nature of Clarke’s use of instrumentation in the ‘Song’, this is something for which he may not have accounted. 28 The Diverting Post, 25 November 1704, cited in M. Tilmouth, ‘A calendar of references to music in newspapers published in London and the provinces (1660-1719), Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 1 (1961), 57. 29 P. Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers (Oxford, 2/1995), 410. 30 Ibid, pp. 408-410; Blow, Anthems II: Anthems with Orchestra, ed. B. Wood, Musica Britannica 50 (London, 1984), pp. xx, xxv. Purcell uses a BBflat (once) in his 1694 ode for the Duke of Gloucester’s Birthday, and a GG (twice) in his birthday ode for Queen Mary ‘Welcome, welcome glorious morn’ (1690). Blow writes a GG just before ‘Choose for the formal fool’ in Act II of Venus and Adonis. I am grateful to Bruce Wood, who suggests that these notes were probably played by a theorbo, for this information. 31 H. Diack Johnstone, ‘Review: Thematic Catalog of the works of Jeremiah Clarke by Thomas Taylor’, Music and Letters 59 (1978), 58. 32 The Post Boy, 11 and 14 December; The London Gazette, 13 December 1697. 33 Thomas Taylor, Thematic Catalog of the Works of Jeremiah Clarke (Detroit, 1977), nos. 207.1 and 206.2. See also Johnstone, ‘Review’, p. 58. ‘O Harmony, where’s now thy power’ is found in GB-Ob MS Mus.c.6. 34 I am grateful to Christopher Gammon for making his editions of ‘Pay your thanks’ and ‘Tell the world’, completed earlier this year as part of his Masters studies at the University of Leeds, available to me. 35 Another Clarke setting, the song ‘Kneel, O kneel’, was written for Cinthia and Endimion, and Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson argue that the music that must have preceded it in the second act was also by Clarke. ‘Pay your thanks’ can now be added to the music they have assigned to the dramatic opera in their article ‘The Music for Durfey’s Cinthia and Endimion’, Theatre Notebook, xci (1986-7), 7074. They are incorrect, however, in suggesting that the overture to Daniel Purcell’s ‘The loud-toung’d warlike thunder’ is in Clarke’s hand. These pages are in the hand of the copyist identified as London A in R. Shay and R. Thompson, Purcell Manuscripts (Cambridge, 2000), 134, table 4.4. 36 Shay and Thompson, Purcell Manuscripts, 161. 37 Tenbury MS 1232. The work is also preserved in GB-Rcm MS 1106 and GB-Lbl Add. MS 31452. I am grateful to Cassie Barber for the use of her edition of the ode, completed as part of her Masters work at Bretton Hall College of the University of Leeds in 2002. 38 Johnstone, ‘Review’, 58. 39 Stationers’ Company, Warden’s Account Book, 9 July 1663-6 July 1727. 40 GB-Lbl C.38.1.6(26) 41 Daily Courant, 3 March 1703. 42 Mr [John] Church (c. 1675-1741), Mr [Richard] Elford (1677-1714), Mr [John] Freeman (1666-1736), Mr [John] Mason (d. 1752), and Mr [Daniel] Williams (c. 1668-1720). 43 Both works are found in GB-Lbl Add. MS 31812. 44 English Court Odes 1660-1820 (Oxford, 1971), 58, n. 44. 45 For a detailed documentary biography, see BDECM, 384-86. Corrected version of Figure 1