Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II

Author(s): W. Barclay Squire

Source: Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft , Feb., 1903, 4. Jahrg., H. 2.
(Feb., 1903), pp. 225-233
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/928999

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Franz Steiner Verlag is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Musicfor the Funeral of Mary II. 225

Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II

by

W. Barclay Squire.
(London.)

It is not often that a single collector is so fortunate as to find, within

a comparatively short time, two unknown works by a great master, but
this rare piece of luck has just happened to Mr. Taphouse, the en-
thusiastic Oxford musician whose fine private collection of musical works
is known to all amateurs of the art. A few years ago there was unearthed
from a volume in Mr. Taphouse's library the beautiful Violin So-
nata by Purcell, - apparently the only one of its kind that he wrote,
- which has been published by the firm of Schott and Co.; and within
the last few weeks the same collector has been so fortunate as to dis-
cover the compositions by Henry Purcell which are now here printed
the first time. The originals were found by Mr. Taphouse in a set of f
manuscript volumes of scores by Purcell preserved in the library of O
College, Oxford; to which they were presented about the end of t
18th century by a Lord Leigh, whose book-plate they contain. Besi
the Funeral Music here printed, these volumes contain scores of
music in "Oedipus", "Timon of Athens", "Bonduca", "Circe", and "Ki
Arthur", and the Ode on the Duke of Gloucester's Birthday. All t
manuscripts are in the same handwriting, that of an unknown copy
who worked at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century
Each composition has an ornamental heading executed in Indian in
The score of Daniel Purcell's "The Grove, or Love's Paradise", whi
is preserved in the library of the Royal College of Music (Sacred Harmon
Catalogue, no. 1863), is written by the same copyist; as is also the f
part of a volume in the Library of St. Michael's College, Tenbury, stat
on the cover to have been begun in 1696, and containing compositi
by both Henry and Daniel Purcell. The handwriting is extremely ne
but not free from mistakes, some of which have been corrected in anot
contemporary hand.
The two pieces now presented are especially interesting, both histor
cally and musically.
Queen Mary II died at Kensington of small-pox on 28 December 1694
On the following day her body was embalmed, and in the night of
December was removed to Whitehall, where it remained until 5 Mar
when it was buried with great pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chape
15*

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
226 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II.

Westminster Abbey. The funeral was one of the most imposing that has
ever been accorded to an English monarch. An eye-witness1) says: -
"La foule etoit inconcevable. Aussi n'a-t-on jamais viU de CWrdmonie plus
grave, ni plus pompeuse." The official "Order and Form of the Pro-
ceeding to the Funeral" is extant, giving the order of the procession,
and another account of the ceremony is to be found in the anonymous
work just quoted. According to the former there were at intervals in
the long string of mourners who preceded the funeral car four sets of
two trumpeters and one of three; besides the "Gentlemen of the Chapel
and Vestry in Copes, and the Children of the Chapel singing all the
way". The French account, however, says that there were four sets of
drummers, two in each set, and four sets of three trumpeters. The pic-
torial representations of the Queen's funeral, though interesting, are pro-
bably not of much value as evidence of the exact arrangements. The
chief of them are to be found in the folio "Lyk-Reden op de ... Dood
en Begraaffenis van ... Maria de II ... door Samuel Gruterus ...
Gepierd met Platen door M1r. Romeyn de Hooghe, etc." (Amsterdam,
1695), which contains a series of elaborate views, including a long pano-
rama of the procession, a plan of the choir and transepts of West-
minster Abbey, and a large double-page plate of the Mausoleum erected
before the altar to receive the Queen's coffin. It is generally believed
that the designer of these engravings, Romeyn de Hooghe, got his ma-
terials for them at second-hand, and in this case he seems carefully to
have followed the official "Order and Form". His trumpeters are thirteen
in number, but he represents the "Edellieden van de Kapel en Sacristie in
haar Kleeding en't Choor singende langs de heele wegh" as only eight in
number, whereas we know from Chamberlayne's "Angliae Notitia" (18th
ed. 1694) that the Chapel Royal at that time consisted of three organists
(Child, Blow, and Purcell), twenty Gentlemen, and ten children.
Another engraving of the procession2) also gives the number of trum-
peters as thirteen, but in it the "Edelluyden van de Capel en Sacristie
in Casuiffels" are eight in number, and the "Koorjongens zingende langs
den weg" are twenty-one, with the Master of the Choristers conducting
behind them! In the face of this conflicting evidence it is not possible
to say with certainty what the exact arrangements were. It is clear that
the music created some impression, for 'it is thus alluded to in one of
the innumerable Odes which the event called forth: -

1) "Relation de la Maladie de la Mort et des Funerailles de Marie Stuart, Reine

d'Angleterre .... Comprise en deux Lettres dcrites de Londres, par Monsieur M.
A Amsterdam, chex Jean Garrel .... 1695". 4 to.
2) " Waare Afbeeldinge van de Lyk-Staatsie, gehouden over Hare Majesteyt Mar
Stuart, etc." by L. Scherm.

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II. 227

"Take next the humble Off'rings of the Quire,

Who tho' their Notes are low, their Key no higher,
Yet with a mournfull Symphony, take pains
To imitate at least Seraphic Strains 1)."
I have not been able to discover any contemporary account of the
music that was played or sung during the procession from Whitehall to
the Abbey. The official "Order and Form of the Proceeding to the
Funeral", De Hooghe's and Scherm's engravings, and the account of
Mons. M .... , all place the choir and the various groups of trumpeters
at some distance from the funeral car itself, but as "The Queens Funerall
March" now printed must have been played by four instruments, while
the accounts of the funeral vary in the numbers they give of the trump-
eters, and the plates are probably designed from the official account and
are not the work of eye-witnesses, it is quite possible that the heading
of the Oriel MS. is correct, and that a quartet of brass instruments
playing Purcell's chorale-like march, immediately preceded the car.
As to the music in the Abbey itself we have the evidence of Dr.
Tudway (d. 1730), that the anthem sung was Purcell's "Remember not,
Lord, our offences". In his introduction to vol. IV2) of the MS. collec-
tion made by him between 1715 and 1720 for the Earl of Oxford, Tud-
way, writing of music suitable to devotion, says:
"An instance .... I shall give . . . in ye last Anthem of this volume;
compos'd by Mr. Henry Purcell, after ye old way; and sung at ye interr-
ment of Queen Mary in Westminster Abbey; a great Queen, and extremely
Lamented, being there to be interr'd, ev'ry body present, was dispos'd,
and serious, at so solemn a Service, as indeed they ought to be at all parts
of divine Worship; I appeal to all yt were present, as well such as under-
stood Music, as those yt did not, whither, they ever heard anything, so rap-
turously fine, so solemn, and so Heavenly, in ye Operation, w-h drew tears
from all; and yet a plain Naturall Composition, wch shews ye pow'r of Mu-
sic, when 'tis rightly fitted and Adapted to devotional purposes."
The anthem is headed by Tudway:
"Thou knowest Lord ye Secrets of our Hearts. A Full
Anthem sung at ye funerall Solemnity of Queen Mary 1694/5
accompanied wth flat Mournfull Trumpets. Compos'd by Mr.
Henry Purcell; in Honr to whose Memory the same Compos-
ition was perform'd ye year following at his own funerall, in
Westminster Abbey."
In its original form, as given by Tudway, the anthem is unaccomp-
1) "A poem, occasioned by the Magnificent Proceeding to the Funeral of Her
late Majesty Queen Mary II .... By P. G., Gent. Late of the University of Cam-
bridge .... London. 1695". fol.
2) British Museum, Harl. MS. 7340.

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
228 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II.

anied, but it appears from the title that the brass quartet doubled the
voice-parts. Vincent Novello, who did such noble work in publishing his
great collection of Purcell's Sacred Music, has made a curious mistake
with regard to the composer's other funeral anthem, "Blessed is the man",
which immediately precedes "Remember not, Lord" in Tudway's col-
lection. In a note to the former composition Novello quotes part of the
above extract from Tudway's preface, altering the beginning thus: "This
Anthem was composed by Mr. Henry Purcell after the old way" etc.,
and making the description of the effect "Remember not, O Lord" prod-
uced at Queen Mary's funeral refer to "Blessed is the man". How the
mistake arose it is impossible to say. "Blessed is the man" is headed
"A verse Anthem for 3 voices for a funeral solemnity"; but the words
("his seed shall be mighty upon earth, the generation of the faithful shall
be blessed") are obviously inappropriate to the funeral of the childless
Queen, while it is by no means written "after the old way" and is also
not the last anthem in the volume.
To return from this digression to the Funeral Music discovered by
Mr. Taphouse, it is a curious fact 1) that the Funeral March is an adap-
tion of a passage from the music written by Purcell to Shadwell's play
of "The Libertine", a version of the Don Juan legend which was first
produced in 1676. It has generally been assumed that Purcell's music
was performed in this year, but for various reasons, the discussion of
which would take me too far from the present subject, but to which I
hope to return in a future article, there is ground for believing that it
was written for a revival of the play of 1692. The passage used for
the Queen's Funeral March occurs at the beginning of the Fifth Act,
the scene of which is laid in the Infernal Regions, where Don Juan's
advent is heralded by a chorus of Devils. In a manuscript2) of "The
Libertine" written by Dr. Croft (1677-1727), who was himself a con-
temporary of Purcell's, the passage is given as follows: -
Flatt Trumpetts.

14_
. ._ __-_-1-1
. MT 4-4
-V . L -- --- I' . . .

C - . ..

1) I am indebted t
2) British Museum

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II. 229

- - -___L __:.
ri p ...- ? - ,- ,, -- - --L"e J

A comparison of this version with that discovered by Mr. Taphouse

gives rise to the question, what were the instruments for which th
March and Canzona were written? Croft's score and Tudway both u
the singular expression "Flat Trumpets" and the Oriel MS. simply gives
"Trumpets", yet it is certain that no Trumpet could have played th
music without a slide, the use of which only became common at a much
later date. Both De Hooghe's and Scherm's plates show trumpets, bu
it has been shown that as evidence they are unreliable, and the offic
"Form and Order" gives no place in the procession where four trum
peters could have played together. On consulting the well-known trum-
pet-player Mr. Morrow as to this point, he gives it as his opinion th
the music was played by Trombones and not by Trumpets, and that the
latter term was only used "in the general or collective way in whic
many people speak of brass instruments as Trumpets 1)". The usua
English term for trombones at that date was Sackbut. In H. Eich-
born's "Die Trompete in alter und neuer Zeit" (Leipzig, 1881) a good
deal of evidence will be found that at the period when Purcell wrote
some sort of slide-trumpet was occasionally used, though, so far as I
know, no passage has hitherto been found showing - as this music of
Purcell's does - that these instruments possessed slides capable of lower-
ing the notes of the harmonic scale five semitones. On the whole it seems
most probable, that the instruments used in "The Libertine" and at
Queen Mary's funeral were four Trombones, the two upper parts being
played by small Discant Trombones analogous to Bach's Tromba da
tirarsi2) in the Church Cantata "Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht". The

1) Elisha C oles, in his English Dictionary (London, 1692) defines Sackbut as "a
drawing Trumpet". In the 1732 edition of the same work the definition is strangely
altered, probably by an ignorant printer, to "drawling Trumpet". T an s ur (Elements
of Music, 1767) speaks of the sackbut as the "Trumpet harmonious".
2) Spitta, Life of Bach (English translation, London, 1884), II, 428, note.

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 230 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II.

term "Flat Trumpet" probably referred to the fact that they were
tuned in a flat key, instead of in the customary keys of D, C or G 1).
But whatever the precise instruments used in the "The Libertine" were,
it is interesting to note how Purcell hit upon the the same instrumental
colouring as was used for practically the same dramatic situation by
Monteverde, who introduced trombones in the Hades scene of his ,,Orfeo"
in 1607, and by Mozart in the employment of the same instruments to
accompany the entrance of the Statue in the last Act of "Don Juan"
(1787).
With regard to the "Tremolo" of Purcell's Canzona, I cannot do
better than quote Mr. Morrow: - "The Tremolo", he writes, "would,
I think, be produced in the same manner as used by many affected
players - chiefly of the Cornet and Euphonium - at the present day;
it is a vulgar incessant vibrato which they mistake for expression, but
which can, like all other effects, be used occasionally with utility. It is
produced by a movement of the abdominal muscles".
In printing these interesting compositions of Purcell's I have followed
the Oriel MSS, closely, though in the Canzona two of the contemporary
corrections of the copyist's MS. have been adopted in the third part,
as they rectify what are obvious errors.

The Queens Funerall March sounded before her Chariot.

Mr. H. Purcell.

Trumpt 1 st

Trumpt 2nd F

Trumpt 3rd T 3L

-6j6 .6 66 .66 .66 .6 .6

Trumpt 4thIE
1) See Eichborn, op. cit. p. 32. The Philological Society's Dictionary gives a
curious example of the use of the term flat in the following passage from Teonge's Diary
(1625): - "25 Dec. Crismas Day wee keepe thus. At 4 in the morning our trum-
peters all doe flatt their trumpetts, and begin at our Captain's cabin . . . . playing
levite at each doore". Dr. Murray's explanation of this expression, viz. that "to flatt
means "to blow", derived from the Latin flare, is probably correct, and the term has
nothing in common with Purcell's "flatt trumpetts".

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II. 231

. _ __.-_
----
149-
__ _____
-_ _--d? _

Canzona. As it was sounded in the Abby after the Anthe

IIIP

Tremulo.

* - _ ._ _,

I - -w-j

- 44- WI- r. .
0- E-=4-1=.6

.-, - -

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
232 W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II.

- l

J-L

" ?-------,--....
S -- -- 7MW--
--

- - ,-.-

? /tCff
t-i?EE~_~f, , ,,t--- ,,- ,-

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
W. Barclay Squire, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Mary II. 233

----_ ~--_----.- -o- -- -. ..

opts

Finis.

. I ? IL .L , L

This content downloaded from

132.174.251.250 on Thu, 06 May 2021 18:52:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms