PAGE 85, No. 84. "I will sing unto the Lord." Dr. Burney seems to have been the first who observed, or (to use his own term) "discovered," that the intervals in the counter-subject of this Chorus, to the above words, are exactly the same as in the celebrated Canon, Non nobis Domine. They are here compared as nearly as may be. "Whether the subject occurred to Handel accidentally, or was taken with design, I know not; but in either case, the notes are happily selected, and ingeniously used. As to the original inventor, or right owner of that series of notes upon which the canon, which tradition has given to Bird, was constructed, they had been the subject of fugue to Zarlino, and to old Adrian Villaert, his master, long before Bird was born; and, indeed, constitute one of the different species of tetrachord used by the Greeks, in the highest antiquity."—"Commemoration of Handel," page 39, note. He further says, (History of Music, vol. 3, page 92, n.) "Zarlino, Palestrina, and many others of the old Italian masters, have made the same series of sounds the subject of incidental points in their compositions, but in none of their works have I been able to discover a regular canon on the same motivo. Morley has worked upon it, page 160, but calls it 'a most common point.'" In addition to the above, Dr. Busby instances the same passage in the Hallelujah Chorus, to the words, "For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." "History of Music, vol. 2, p. 26, n. 66 PAGE 91, No. 91. They that go down to the sea in ships." The following is the passage to which the note has reference : "The king had given orders for building a yacht, which, as soon as it was finished, he named the Fubbs. Soon after the vessel was launched, a party was made to sail in this yacht down the river, and round the Kentish coast; and Mr. Gostling was requested to be of the number. They had got as low as the North Foreland, when a violent storm arose, in which the king and the Duke of York were necessitated, in order to preserve the vessel, to hand the sails, and work like common seamen; by good providence, however, they escaped to land: but the distress they were in made an impression on the mind of Mr. Gostling, which was never effaced. Struck with a just sense of the deliverance, and the horror of the scene which he had but lately viewed, upon his return to London he selected from the Psalms those passages which declare the wonders and terrors of the deep, and gave them to Purcell to compose as an anthem, which he did, adapting it so peculiarly to the compass of Mr. Gostling's voice, which was a deep bass, that hardly any person but himself was then, or has since been able to sing it; but the king did not live to hear it."-Hawkins' "History of Music," vol. iv., page 359, note. Mr. Novello, in his edition of this Anthem, states that the words "When winds breathe soft," so beautifully set by the elder Webbe, were the production of Mr. Gostling. They appear to be a paraphrase of the words of the Anthem; and "Mr. Webbe, who met with them by accident, was so struck with their beauty and descriptive power, that he sat down and adapted the whole of them to music, without once stopping until the piece was entirely completed."-Novello's "Purcell." PAGE 162, No. 189. "Bow thine ear." The music of this Anthem is sometimes sung to the following words:: Is. Ixiv: 9. Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: see, we beseech thee, we are thy people. 10. Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. 11. Our holy and our beautiful house is burned up with fire. 12. Wilt thou refrain thyself? wilt thou hold thy peace, O Lord, and afflict us very sore? PAGE 165, No. 198. "I will exalt thee." It may not, here, be out of place to state, that this first specimen of Anthem-writing, which led the way to the more pleasing, but not more learned, productions of Purcell, Croft, &c., &c., was the result of the non-success of another work by Dr. Tye, which that Composer wrote for the use of his pupil, King Edward VI. Its title is as follows: "The Actes of the Apostles, translated into Englyshe metre, and dedicated to the kynges moste excellent maiestye by Christofer Tye, Doctor in musyke, and one of the Gentylmen of hys graces most honourable Chappell, wyth notes to eche chapter, to synge and also to play upon the Lute, very necessarye for studentes after theyr studye, to fyle theyr wyttes, and alsoe for all Christians that cannot synge to reade the good and Godlye storyes of the liues of Christ hys Apostles."-(A.D. 1553.) The Dedication is "To the vertuous and godlye learned prynce Edwarde the VI. ;" and is in twenty-five stanzas of alternate metre, of which the following are a speci "Thomas Sternhold was the first that attempted a version of the Psalms in English. He did to the number of about forty of them: the rest in the printed collection used in churches were afterwards translated by John Hopkins, William Whittingham, Thomas Norton, and others. Sternhold's version was first published in the year 1549."—Sir John Hawkins' "History of Music," vol. 3, page 254, note. "In 1549 Sternhold published a portion of the Psalms, thirty-seven in number, not fifty-one, as stated by Sir John Hawkins [vol. 3, page 500] and Warton. In 1551 Sternhold's Psalms were republished, with seven additional ones by John Hopkins. These were soon adopted by the English Calvinists at Geneva; and after undergoing such alterations, as to them seemed meet, they were, with the addition of seven others by W. Whityngham, at that time residing at Geneva, printed there in 1556. The number thus became fifty-one, and perhaps it was a hasty sight of this edition which misled Hawkins and Warton."-Dr. Rimbault's Reprint of "The whole Book of Psalms, published by Thomas Este, A.D. 1592."-(Introduction, page 1.) That Dr. Rimbault himself is, probably, not correct in assigning thirty-seven of the Psalms to Sternhold's first edition, appears from the "List of Editions of the Bible and Parts thereof, in English, from the year 1505 to 1820," published at Oxford, 1821, by the Rev. Henry Cotton, D.C.L., late Student of Christ Church, Oxford.(a) In that work the following note occurs (page 55) with reference to a book entitled "The Psalms in metre, by Thomas Sternehold; London, 1549, by Edw. Whitchurch." 12mo. "The title at full length is. All such Psalms of David as Thomas Sterneholde, late grome of the kynges maiestyes robes, did in his lyfe tyme drawe into Englyshe metre.' "It contains 51 Psalms, (according to Dibdin, but qu.?) and is considered to be the first edition; but yet is, in all probability, posterior to one without date, by the same printer; inasmuch as this last contains only 19 Psalms instead of 51, and in the title Sterneholde is spoken of as then alive; being 'grome,' not 'late grome.'”(b)—ED. (a) Now Archdeacon of Cashel, and Treasurer of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. (b) A second and much enlarged edition of Dr. Cotton's work is in course of publication, from the proof sheets of which the Editor of the present volume has kindly been permitted to make the following summary of that part of the learned Author's labours whieh illustrates the inquiry now under review. "And some doth take in hande to wryte "And last of all, I youre poore man, "Haue thought it good nowe to recyte "Euen of the twelue, as Luke doth wryte, 66 Having such precedents as the "Psalmes and Booke of Kynges" turned into "pleasaunt verse," and also (though he does not allude to it) the Genealogy of Christ" set to music, Dr. Tye proceeded to do the like with the " Actes euen of the twelue;" but concluded his labours at the fourteenth Chapter. The specimen of the music, given by * The work to which Dr. Tye here refers is not, at present, known.— Hawkins. The Archdeacon of Cashel in his "List," &c., mentions a book entitled "The History of King David, taken from the books of the Kings, drawen into metre by John Marbeck: London, 4to, 1579," which, he thinks, may possibly be the work alluded to by Dr. Tye in his metrical preface. If this opinion (communicated to the Editor) is correct, the edition of 1579 could not have been the first, as Dr. Tye's "Actes of the Apostles" was published in 1553.-ED. A.D. PROGRESSIVE PUBLICATION OF STERNHOLD'S PSALMS. 1548 or 1549, London, 19 by Sternhold. London, 44 viz., 37 by Sternhold and 7 by Hopkins. 1551 London, 44 37 do.. 1552 (?) London, 44 London, 44 |