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REIGN OF CHARLES II. . 479
Mr. Alphonso March; and Mu3tapha, by Mr. Thomas Blagrave and Mr. Henry Purcell. The vocal music of the first and fifth " entries," or acts, was composed by Henry Lawes; of the second and third by Captain Henry Cook (who was {afterwards Master of the Children of the Chapels Royal); and the fourth by the celebrated Matthew Lock. The instrumental music was composed by Dr. Charles Coleman and George Hudson, and performed by Messrs. William Webb, Christopher Gibbons, Humphrey Madge, Thomas Baltzar, " a German," Thomas Baites, and John Banister. The scenery was designed and " ordered" by Mr. John Web. Davenant assigns as a reason for his " numbers being so often diversified," that " frequent alterations of measure are necessary to recitative nusic." I have given rather minute details of the manner in which this opera was performed, because it is not mentioned by Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. Burney had not examined the edition of 1656, and his account and all his deductions are consequently erroneous.* {History, iv. 182.)
In 1669, Louis XIV. granted, by letters patent, to the Sieur Perrin "une permission d'etablir en notre bonne Ville de Paris, et autres de notre Eoyaume, des Academies de Musique pour chanter en public de pieces de Theatre, comme il se pratique en Italie, en Allemagne, et en Angleterre" According to Menestrier, in his Des Representations en Musique Anciennes et Modernes (Paris, 1681), after Perrin had enjoyed this patent for a few years, it was revoked and given to Lully. From this it is evident that opera was established in England about thirteen years before France, and that Matthew Lock was, by about twenty years, an earlier composer of dramatic music than Lully.
We learn from Ogilby's " Relation of His Majesty's entertainment passing through the city of London to his Coronation," April 22nd, 1661, that Lock composed the whole of the music for the public entry of Charles II., and had received the appointment of " Composer in Ordinary" to the King. His " Psyche," b seems to have been the first opera printed in England (4to., 1675), and it is mixed with " interlocutions (or dialogue), as more proper to our Genius" than the Italian plan of being entirely in recitative. To that system we have since adhered almost without exception.
Our public concerts originated from the music performed at taverns. When the civil war commenced, and " the whole of the masters of music in London were turned adrift, some went into the army, others dispersed in the country and made music for the consolation of the Cavalier gentlemen," while many of the musicians of the theatres were driven to earn a subsistence by frequenting taverns and inviting the guests to hear them perform. They who went into the country " gave great occasion," says Roger North, " to divers [county] families to entertain the
Burney comes to a conclusion directly opposed to was printed in score with Psyche. His music to Macbeth
thu fact, viz.: that " it seems as if this drama was no was not printed during his lifetime, and we have no copy
more like an Italian opera than the Masques which long " extant of so early a date. A tune called "Macbeth, a Jigg,"
preceded it." History, vol. 4, p. 182. A copy in the is in Mustek's Delight on the Cithren, 1666, and the same
British Museum wants the last leaf, and that leaf con- is in The Pleasant Companion to the Flagelet with the
tains many of the ahove particulars. I am indebted to initials of M[atthew] Lfock] against it Lock is said to
Dr. Rimbault for the loan of a perfect copy. have composed the music to Macbeth in 1670. This jig
! Lock's instrumental music to Shakespeare's Tempest is of four years earlier date. |
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