1 00:00:03,960 --> 00:00:06,080 What do you get a Queen for her birthday? 2 00:00:06,080 --> 00:00:07,800 Diamonds? 3 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:10,160 She's got more than she can wear. 4 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:11,480 Dresses? 5 00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:13,440 Already wardrobes full. 6 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:15,800 Paintings? Two a penny. 7 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:20,080 In despair, how about this? 8 00:00:20,080 --> 00:00:23,760 THEY PLAY 9 00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:34,080 This is the glorious overture to an Ode for Queen Mary II's birthday, 10 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:37,480 written in 1694 by Henry Purcell. 11 00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:43,240 It's the work of a man who received his musical education at court, 12 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:46,440 was paid by the court, and who, for most of his career, 13 00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:48,440 composed very largely for the court. 14 00:00:48,440 --> 00:00:52,360 It would be hard to imagine a narrower or more exclusive world 15 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:56,200 and yet, you know, it produced the greatest musical genius 16 00:00:56,200 --> 00:00:58,760 ever to have been born on British soil. 17 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:04,160 In this series, I'm exploring how monarchy 18 00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:06,320 has shaped the history of British music 19 00:01:06,320 --> 00:01:10,120 and that story is never more dramatic than in the 17th century. 20 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:16,320 A battle raged about the religion and the power of kings, 21 00:01:16,320 --> 00:01:19,400 which threatened not only the future of the monarchy 22 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:24,040 but the lives of musicians, and the whole tradition of English music. 23 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:29,880 And yet, in the midst of this upheaval, the monarchy presided over 24 00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:33,880 a series of musical breakthroughs - 25 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:37,720 from the first chamber concerts and proto-operas, 26 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:40,960 to the triumphant debut of the baroque orchestra. 27 00:01:57,160 --> 00:02:02,080 A faultline ran through the entire 17th century - religion. 28 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:05,800 It was the divide between the old faith and the new, 29 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:07,600 between Catholic and Protestant, 30 00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:11,480 and, increasingly, between different kinds of Protestant. 31 00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:15,480 In 1603, England lost Queen Elizabeth - 32 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:20,320 the monarch who had, for 44 years, kept some kind of peace. 33 00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:24,840 Her successor had the potential to reopen all the wounds 34 00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:26,320 of the religious schism. 35 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:31,560 The accession of King James VI of Scotland, 36 00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:35,440 as James I of England, could have been revolutionary. 37 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:38,320 As a Scot, James was a foreigner. 38 00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:42,480 He'd also been brought up in the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk, 39 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:44,800 which was much more radically Protestant 40 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:46,320 than the Church of England. 41 00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:49,840 But the moment he crossed the border, 42 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:53,520 he embraced the splendour of the English court and the power 43 00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:58,280 of his new role as a Supreme Head of the Church of England. 44 00:02:58,280 --> 00:03:02,240 At the same time, he Anglicised musically. 45 00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:06,280 He left behind, in Scotland, the musicians who'd served him hitherto, 46 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:10,280 and instead he took over complete, and as a going concern, 47 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:12,000 the Tudor Chapel Royal, 48 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,960 which included all the major composers of the day. 49 00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:18,200 # Oh, clap your hands together 50 00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:20,280 # Oh, clap your hands together 51 00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:22,360 # Oh, clap your hands together 52 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:24,080 # Oh, clap your hands together 53 00:03:24,080 --> 00:03:26,440 # Oh, clap your hands together 54 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:28,360 # All yea people 55 00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:31,720 # All yea people... # 56 00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:36,000 The very same year James came south, the author of this piece 57 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,880 and one of the greatest composers in English history 58 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:42,160 made his first appearance in royal records. 59 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:47,960 Orlando Gibbons was from humble but musical stock - 60 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:51,520 the son of a civic minstrel in Cambridge, whose talent had 61 00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:56,080 won him a place as chorister, then student, at King's College. 62 00:03:56,080 --> 00:04:00,120 He was barely 20 years old when he joined the most prestigious 63 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:03,640 musical institution in the land - the Chapel Royal. 64 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:10,800 This was the monarchy's personal choir, which had a home at each 65 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:16,080 of the King's palaces and which sang at all the great occasions of state. 66 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:19,640 # God is gone up with a merry noise 67 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:24,800 # And the Lord with the sound of the trump 68 00:04:24,800 --> 00:04:29,720 # God is gone up with a merry noise... # 69 00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:34,240 Gibbons brought a new energy and directness to sacred music. 70 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:38,520 His choral works are still sung in the Church of England today. 71 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:40,440 In his own lifetime, however, 72 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:44,160 Gibbons was still more prized as a keyboard player 73 00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:48,800 and as the composer of ground-breaking instrumental music. 74 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:52,720 This he created not, primarily, for the King 75 00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:55,160 but for his heir, Prince Charles. 76 00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:08,640 This was the kind of music for which Charles had a particular fondness. 77 00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:12,120 It's an example of an English musical invention - 78 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:13,400 the fantasia suite. 79 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:28,800 As Prince of Wales, Charles had his own royal household 80 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:33,160 and that allowed him to build a musical establishment of his own. 81 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:36,200 It was second in size only to the King's 82 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:39,200 but it served a very different purpose. 83 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:42,360 The King's music made the music of state, 84 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:45,800 the Prince's band the music of pleasure. 85 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:49,960 So, it featured new composers like Orlando Gibbons, 86 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:52,360 who worked directly for Prince Charles, 87 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:54,920 in addition to his Chapel Royal duties. 88 00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:57,840 And it also made new kinds of music. 89 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:06,520 This instrument, the viol, was a particular favourite of the English 90 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:11,440 in the 17th century and it's what Charles himself played rather well. 91 00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:20,680 In earlier centuries, instrumental music had been seen as little more 92 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:23,760 than a hobby for amateurs or something to dance to. 93 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:31,400 Charles, unusually for the time, took non-vocal music seriously 94 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:33,160 and, as well as performing, 95 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,640 would listen with the appreciation of a true connoisseur. 96 00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:41,360 'I think this was the beginnings of the musical concert' 97 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:43,280 but, of course, it wasn't just to anybody, 98 00:06:43,280 --> 00:06:44,600 it was a very specific... 99 00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:47,360 It would be a tiny circle around the King or the Prince and this, 100 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:51,280 this is household or indeed, literally, chamber music. Yes. 101 00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:53,160 The Gibbons we've just heard, for example, 102 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:55,920 is very intricate music, very subtle... 103 00:06:55,920 --> 00:06:57,080 Barely a melody! 104 00:06:57,080 --> 00:07:00,120 Yeah, there was something, sort of, avant-garde going on there. 105 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:04,840 Something forging new ways of, of doing this music. 106 00:07:11,760 --> 00:07:14,720 For example, the opening of the Gibbons, 107 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:16,880 we have this extraordinary soundscape 108 00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:21,560 where these very close dissonances are piled one on top of the other, 109 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:25,040 so that there seems to be no relief from them. 110 00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:27,880 You don't feel that there's any relaxation coming. 111 00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:41,280 On the one hand there is this searching emotion, 112 00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:45,840 on the other there's a quite extraordinary technical complexity. 113 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:47,320 I mean, music at this point 114 00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:50,040 is considered a high academic subject, isn't it? 115 00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:52,680 Mm, and music is often regarded as a science 116 00:07:52,680 --> 00:07:55,040 rather than an art at this point. 117 00:07:55,040 --> 00:07:59,360 Revealing the underlying harmony of the universe is, in some ways, 118 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:01,440 the business of the, of the composer. 119 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:07,160 Throughout his life, Charles yearned for this harmony, 120 00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:08,920 elegance and order - 121 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:14,960 not just in art but in his faith, and, he was determined, in his rule. 122 00:08:17,240 --> 00:08:21,240 His Coronation, on 2nd February 1626, 123 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:24,040 is the first where we know who wrote the music. 124 00:08:25,600 --> 00:08:28,280 Orlando Gibbons had died the previous year, 125 00:08:28,280 --> 00:08:31,960 so the role was taken by the Welsh composer Thomas Tomkins. 126 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:36,000 # O Lord 127 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:40,640 # O Lord 128 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:48,440 # Grant the King a long life 129 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:50,640 # Grant the King a long life... # 130 00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:53,720 This is probably the oldest surviving anthem, 131 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:55,800 written specifically for a coronation, 132 00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:59,080 sung here, as it would have been four centuries ago, 133 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:01,320 by the choir of Westminster Abbey. 134 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:09,160 Tomkins' work has none of the pomp of later coronation music 135 00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:11,800 by Purcell, Handel or Parry. 136 00:09:11,800 --> 00:09:14,880 At this time, trumpets and drums were not deemed appropriate 137 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:17,680 for the sacred part of the rite. 138 00:09:17,680 --> 00:09:26,600 # He shall dwell before God for ever 139 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:31,880 # For ever 140 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:38,800 # Lord prepare thy loving mercy and faith... # 141 00:09:40,560 --> 00:09:46,520 What the anthems do is take an individual action, like the action 142 00:09:46,520 --> 00:09:52,560 of anointing, and they lift it out of merely the context of Westminster 143 00:09:52,560 --> 00:09:59,120 on this day, and they place it on a kind of celestial scale. 144 00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:07,120 It becomes part of not simply the theatre of an individual monarch, 145 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:12,480 but it becomes part of a divine theatre, a power and authority, 146 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:17,160 in which the king on earth becomes assimilated to the King in heaven. 147 00:10:18,640 --> 00:10:20,880 # So will we always sing praise unto thy name 148 00:10:20,880 --> 00:10:25,560 # So will we always sing praise unto thy name 149 00:10:25,560 --> 00:10:30,840 # So will we always sing praise unto thy name 150 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:37,120 # That I may daily perform my vows 151 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,280 # That I may daily perform... # 152 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:42,160 The music, like all aspects of the ceremony, 153 00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:46,040 confirmed, for Charles, the Divine Right of his royal rule - 154 00:10:46,040 --> 00:10:49,800 a belief he held more passionately and inflexibly 155 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:51,280 than any of his ancestors. 156 00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:58,600 The Coronation also confirmed the value of the cleric who would 157 00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:02,640 become his chief adviser, as well as head of the Chapel Royal 158 00:11:02,640 --> 00:11:06,600 and, in time, Archbishop of Canterbury - William Laud. 159 00:11:09,600 --> 00:11:13,720 Laud acted as Master of Ecclesiastical Ceremonies. 160 00:11:13,720 --> 00:11:17,280 He took the King through the first ever coronation rehearsal 161 00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:20,080 and, on the day itself, he arranged signals 162 00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:22,720 to cue the choirs when to come in. 163 00:11:22,720 --> 00:11:26,160 The result was that the five-hour ceremony passed 164 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:27,880 with scarcely a hitch. 165 00:11:27,880 --> 00:11:31,840 It also suggested to Charles that Laud's managerial talents 166 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:35,160 could be deployed on a bigger stage. 167 00:11:35,160 --> 00:11:38,880 The King wanted the solemnity, elaboration 168 00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:42,760 and beauty of the service which Laud had orchestrated at the Abbey 169 00:11:42,760 --> 00:11:45,160 to be the model for the whole nation. 170 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:50,280 Charles decreed that England's churches 171 00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:53,960 should be like the chapels in his palaces, such as Hampton Court. 172 00:11:59,880 --> 00:12:03,600 This was the Monarch's personal religious space known, 173 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:07,080 just like the choir which sang here, as the Chapel Royal. 174 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:09,320 And when Charles came to worship here, 175 00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:13,360 he would have felt the presence of his predecessors. 176 00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:15,280 He found the fabric of the interior 177 00:12:15,280 --> 00:12:18,560 pretty much as Henry VIII had left it. 178 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:22,760 Similarly, the worship, liturgy and magnificent musical traditions of 179 00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:27,480 the Chapel still owed everything to Henry VIII's daughter, Elizabeth I. 180 00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:32,680 In most churches, ornate beauty such as this had been 181 00:12:32,680 --> 00:12:35,640 destroyed by the Protestant Reformation. 182 00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:38,280 The King's subjects generally worshipped 183 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:41,000 in far more austere surroundings. 184 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:44,520 Now, Charles I with his love of order, 185 00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:48,960 beauty and uniformity was determined to go the whole hog 186 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:54,160 and make the Chapel Royal, hitherto the exception, the rule. 187 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:01,800 With Laud as his eager enforcer, the King decreed that churches 188 00:13:01,800 --> 00:13:07,600 in England should re-establish the symbols and practices of the past. 189 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:12,240 Charles felt that this was entirely compatible with being Protestant, 190 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:15,360 but to the most devout of his subjects, the Puritans, 191 00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:18,800 the changes looked like a return to Catholicism. 192 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:23,920 And music like this, by Thomas Tomkins, 193 00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:27,040 sounded like a return to Catholicism. 194 00:13:29,360 --> 00:13:33,440 It's being played on an instrument built during Charles' reign 195 00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:35,960 and found today in Tewkesbury Abbey. 196 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:40,840 Nowadays we think of organs 197 00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:44,040 as the most traditional form of church music. 198 00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:46,040 But in the reign of Charles I, 199 00:13:46,040 --> 00:13:48,440 organs and indeed church music itself 200 00:13:48,440 --> 00:13:51,280 were profoundly controversial. 201 00:13:51,280 --> 00:13:55,360 This is because church music lay at the heart of the Revolution 202 00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:59,520 which Laud and King Charles I were determined to impose 203 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:00,960 on the Church of England. 204 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:06,320 They called it "the beauty of holiness". 205 00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:10,760 By this they meant that God should be worshipped not only in words 206 00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:14,120 and by the mind, but also through the senses, 207 00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:17,480 by sight, through stained glass and painting, 208 00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:21,760 and, above all, by hearing, through music. 209 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:27,880 MAJESTIC ORGAN MUSIC 210 00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:29,360 Under Laud's direction, 211 00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:32,600 a multitude of grand new organs were built to replace the many 212 00:14:32,600 --> 00:14:37,280 which had been removed or silenced by the Protestant Reformation. 213 00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:40,440 The best, like this one, 214 00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:44,080 were built by a Lancashire father and son, the Dallams. 215 00:14:45,400 --> 00:14:50,880 For Laudians, music like this made a joyful sound unto the Lord. 216 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:55,720 For Puritans, though, it was a mere obstructive noise. 217 00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:59,720 One of them thundered against, "The horrible profanation 218 00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:03,560 "of both the sacraments with all manner of music, 219 00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:05,640 "both instrumental and vocal, 220 00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:09,160 "so loud that the Minister could not be heard." 221 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:15,600 The organ wars would eventually be fought on a national scale. 222 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:20,160 Laudians versus Puritans, high church versus low church, 223 00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:24,360 Royalists versus Parliament, Cavaliers versus Roundheads. 224 00:15:27,640 --> 00:15:31,920 And yet, whatever the discord in his wider kingdom, 225 00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:34,280 the art of his court presented Charles 226 00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:36,640 with a vision of perfect harmony. 227 00:15:40,320 --> 00:15:43,240 Here, at the Whitehall Banqueting House, 228 00:15:43,240 --> 00:15:45,920 the King and his Queen, Henrietta Maria, 229 00:15:45,920 --> 00:15:49,360 presided over the greatest musical occasions of his reign. 230 00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:55,600 Court masques were the multimedia spectaculars of the day, a mixture 231 00:15:55,600 --> 00:16:01,440 of music and poetry, singing, dancing, comedy, and fashion show. 232 00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:08,840 Perhaps the most spectacular and certainly the most expensive was 233 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:14,680 The Triumph of Peace, staged here before the King and Queen, in 1634. 234 00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:18,920 It cost a staggering £21,000, 235 00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:23,440 that's to say several tens of millions of pounds in today's money. 236 00:16:23,440 --> 00:16:24,880 MALE SOLO VOCAL 237 00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:28,120 The music was the work of a rising new talent 238 00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:29,960 at the court of Charles I. 239 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:32,760 A dashing blade called William Lawes, 240 00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:38,240 who would turn out to be as handy with the sword as with the bow. 241 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:42,920 SINGING IN BAROQUE STYLE 242 00:17:00,760 --> 00:17:05,080 This song by Lawes from the Triumph of Peace 243 00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:08,960 has rarely been performed since 1634. 244 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:14,120 THEY SING IN UNISON 245 00:17:14,120 --> 00:17:16,560 It sounds rather like opera. 246 00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:18,320 The masque however, 247 00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:21,520 had been developing at the English court since Tudor times. 248 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:23,960 And until the 18th century was preferred here 249 00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:26,120 to its Italian relative. 250 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,240 But masques were more than mere entertainments. 251 00:17:40,240 --> 00:17:41,880 They acted as allegories 252 00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:45,800 of how monarchy brings harmony to the whole world. 253 00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:48,600 As did the great painting, by Peter Paul Rubens, 254 00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:52,280 which Charles commissioned for the banqueting house ceiling. 255 00:17:56,880 --> 00:18:01,280 Rubens' ceiling is the perfect representation of divine 256 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:05,240 right monarchy in which the King, like God, 257 00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:10,080 in whose image he is made, rules by reason, law and order. 258 00:18:12,360 --> 00:18:13,960 Outside the court, however, 259 00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:16,520 there were people who felt that the monarchy 260 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:18,480 fell far short of this ideal, 261 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:22,640 and that the masque itself was an example of royal corruption. 262 00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:24,840 For Puritans, masques were sinful. 263 00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:30,120 One, William Prynne, unwisely went into print with his criticisms. 264 00:18:30,120 --> 00:18:35,440 Prynne's 1,000 page diatribe called actresses "notorious whores", 265 00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:38,480 just at the time when, in an astonishing development, 266 00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:42,680 the Queen herself had appeared in a speaking part on the stage. 267 00:18:42,680 --> 00:18:45,960 Archbishop Laud, who had a well reciprocated 268 00:18:45,960 --> 00:18:50,880 loathing for Prynne, denounced the work as "an infamous treason", 269 00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:53,800 and had Prynne hauled before the Star Chamber. 270 00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:57,960 There, he was condemned to a huge fine, to stand in the pillory, 271 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:02,640 to have both his ears cut off and to be imprisoned for life. 272 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:08,400 Charles took the same perfectionist approach to politics as he did 273 00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:10,360 to his patronage of the arts. 274 00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:15,840 Opposition was like an ugly picture, or a wrong note. 275 00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:17,920 He would not tolerate it. 276 00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:23,000 By the late 1630s, 277 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:25,960 Charles' relations with Parliament had broken down. 278 00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:29,840 The elegant fictions of court culture broke with them. 279 00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:35,440 In this atmosphere, William Lawes wrote music which reflected 280 00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:38,040 the disintegration of the old order. 281 00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:42,880 SOLEMN MUSIC PLAYS 282 00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:46,480 It's difficult to avoid the feeling 283 00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:50,400 that there is something about Lawes' own personal experience... 284 00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,520 Broken times. Yes, broken times, indeed. 285 00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:59,360 I'll be quite truthful, before I did this series 286 00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:01,560 I'd never heard of William Lawes. Yes. 287 00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:05,400 And, at the same time listening to the music, it is extraordinary. 288 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,400 It's unlike anything else, isn't it? And I think... 289 00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:10,600 A little bit of me says, "Thank God!" 290 00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:11,840 THEY LAUGH 291 00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:14,160 It is very strange. It's very, very strange. 292 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:16,320 The first time... you ask any viol player, 293 00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:19,240 they'll tell you the first time they played Lawes 294 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:22,280 is like coming across late Beethoven for the first time. 295 00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:26,080 you feel like you're breathing the air from other planets. 296 00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:42,600 Lawes could have become one of the greatest composers of English music. 297 00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:45,800 But in 1642, his career was halted 298 00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:49,520 when civil war finally began in earnest. 299 00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:55,200 William Lawes, passionately loyal to his royal master, was amongst 300 00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:59,200 the very few royal musicians who signed up for the King's Army. 301 00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:01,840 There was an attempt made to protect him 302 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:07,040 from the worst risks of war, by making him a provisioning officer. 303 00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:10,320 But Lawes, as daring in life as in his music, 304 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:14,800 was killed at the Siege of Chester in 1645. 305 00:21:14,800 --> 00:21:18,760 Charles, who'd lost his own cousin in the same action, 306 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:22,200 nevertheless ordered special mourning for the man that he 307 00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:24,680 called the "Father of Musick". 308 00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:33,400 Amid the outpouring of grief, 309 00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:38,120 a fellow Cavalier poet wrote a bitter, punning epitaph. 310 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:46,200 "Will Lawes was slain by those whose wills were laws." 311 00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:50,400 DRUM MARCH 312 00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:55,840 Royal music now took on a very different character. 313 00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:58,920 As the King's men went into battle, this is what they heard. 314 00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:00,920 Charles, punctilious as ever, 315 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:05,240 insisted that a standardised drum march was used by his forces. 316 00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:12,920 DRUM MARCH 317 00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:18,720 In vain, by 1644 his Puritan opponents were clearly winning. 318 00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:22,520 And wherever they gained control, 319 00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:25,600 church music became a casualty of war. 320 00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,040 Take the sad fate of Thomas Tomkins. 321 00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:35,320 Since the start of the 17th century, 322 00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:38,000 he'd combined his duties at the Chapel Royal with 323 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,560 the job of organist and choirmaster at Worcester Cathedral. 324 00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,880 In September 1642, Parliamentary troops 325 00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,880 burst into the Cathedral and desecrated it. 326 00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:56,680 But this wasn't the random violence of rampaging soldiers. 327 00:22:56,680 --> 00:23:00,480 Instead, it was a carefully targeted attack on the symbols 328 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:05,080 of the beauty of holiness most offensive to the Puritans. 329 00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:09,600 So the troops smashed the stained glass, they pissed in the font, 330 00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:14,440 because they thought the use of the sign of cross in Baptism was Popish. 331 00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:20,600 And they silenced Tomkins's beloved organ by ripping off the pipes. 332 00:23:23,120 --> 00:23:26,480 These scenes were repeated across the country. 333 00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,920 The attempts, by Charles and Laud, to revive the older traditions 334 00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:34,760 and music of worship, were systematically undone. 335 00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:38,000 Then Tomkins's study, at the top of his house here, 336 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,720 where he kept his musical manuscripts, was hit by cannonballs 337 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:45,120 fired during the parliamentary bombardment of the city. 338 00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:50,120 Tomkins had faithfully served his King and his Church. 339 00:23:50,120 --> 00:23:54,760 Now, in his 70s, he saw everything that he had lived for 340 00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,160 and worked for destroyed. 341 00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,040 CHURCH ORGAN PLAYS 342 00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,280 The court's vast musical establishment, 343 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,680 by far the best in the land, had been disbanded. 344 00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:11,400 Its talent destroyed. 345 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,600 The Chapel Royal ceased to exist. 346 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,920 And so, in time, did the monarchy itself. 347 00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:24,800 On the 30th January 1649, 348 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,120 King Charles returned to the Banqueting House, 349 00:24:29,120 --> 00:24:32,240 where previously he had savoured the finest music, 350 00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,520 to be beheaded on a scaffold built outside. 351 00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:42,480 Within a fortnight, Thomas Tomkins wrote this piece, which he 352 00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:46,960 entitled "a sad pavan for these distracted times". 353 00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:51,240 25 years after writing music for the King's Coronation, 354 00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:54,200 he'd now written his funeral dirge. 355 00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,880 Most organs had been destroyed during the civil war 356 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:04,160 and Commonwealth. 357 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:08,200 But one that survived was the magnificent Dallam organ, 358 00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,120 in its original home at Magdalen College Oxford. 359 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:18,280 In 1654 it too was taken down, but it wasn't destroyed like the rest. 360 00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:20,680 Instead it was carefully dismantled 361 00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:24,520 and re-erected at Hampton Court Palace, which had just been given to 362 00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:29,040 Oliver Cromwell, now Lord Protector of England, as his summer residence. 363 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:33,280 Cromwell? Organs? 364 00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:37,840 Wasn't the Puritan Lord Protector supposed to hate music? 365 00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:41,440 Well, he did and he didn't. 366 00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,000 He hated music in Church, but he loved it when he dined or 367 00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,840 when he relaxed. 368 00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:52,760 So we can imagine Cromwell listening to this organ, 369 00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:57,480 as it was played at Hampton Court by his Latin secretary, 370 00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:02,600 fellow Puritan, poet and musician, John Milton. 371 00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:06,920 Which is why, centuries later, 372 00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:09,840 this instrument is known as the Milton organ. 373 00:26:23,120 --> 00:26:26,280 MILITARY PIPE BAND PLAYS "THE KING ENJOYS HIS OWN AGAIN" 374 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,160 During the years of Cromwellian rule, 375 00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:34,480 Charles I's son lived in exile on the Continent. 376 00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,960 His supporters rallied round this song. 377 00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:13,040 And after Cromwell's death in 1658, 378 00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:15,880 Parliament did indeed invite the King to return. 379 00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,560 With Charles II came the revival of sacred music which the 380 00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,480 Puritans had fought so hard against. 381 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,560 MUSIC: "Zadok the Priest" 382 00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:28,840 # Zadok the Priest 383 00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:34,520 # And Nathan the Prophet # Anointed Solomon King... # 384 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:42,920 When the new King was crowned on St George's Day, 1661, 385 00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,400 amongst the music composed for the occasion was 386 00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,200 a piece by Henry Lawes, brother of the slain William. 387 00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:55,920 It was a text heard at Coronations since Anglo-Saxon times, 388 00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:59,840 and still in use today, though, for the last three centuries, 389 00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,360 known in its magnificent setting by Handel. 390 00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:10,760 # Hallelujah Hallelujah 391 00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:12,400 # Hallelujah... # 392 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,200 Musically, the coronation of Charles II was a case of new 393 00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,680 wine in old bottles. 394 00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:22,840 The music, like Henry Lawes' Zadok the Priest, was new 395 00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,240 and by a new generation of composers. 396 00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:31,920 But everything else was old, or tried to be. 397 00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,840 So, the same order of service was used, and the same anthems 398 00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:44,920 were sung, as at the Coronation of Charles I in 1626. 399 00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,400 The Coronation regalia, the crown, the orb, the sceptre, which 400 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:52,280 had all been destroyed during the Commonwealth, were remade, 401 00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:57,320 given their own names, and used in the traditional time-honoured way. 402 00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,640 Even the singing was led, as in the old days, 403 00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,360 by the choir of the Chapel Royal. 404 00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:05,280 But, since the last boy treble, 405 00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,680 who had sung before King Charles I, was now a man of 30, 406 00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,800 the choir of the Chapel Royal had to be reconstructed from scratch. 407 00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:17,840 # But upon himself 408 00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:22,720 # Let his crown flourish... # 409 00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:26,920 At the Coronation, the new choristers were still 410 00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:31,280 so young and untrained that their voices had to be reinforced by 411 00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:36,160 men singing falsetto, and were at times drowned out by loud cornets. 412 00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:43,000 And yet, from this revived Chapel Royal would come all the 413 00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:48,720 leading composers of the next few decades, among them Pelham Humfrey, 414 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:53,760 John Blow, and, within a few years, the greatest of them all. 415 00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:59,160 # Hallelujah. # 416 00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:26,160 Henry Purcell was born in 1659, 417 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,640 the year before the monarchy was restored. 418 00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,680 Both his father and his uncle were at the heart of the new 419 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:40,600 regime's musical establishment, working at Westminster Abbey 420 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:41,960 and the Chapel Royal. 421 00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:45,040 And very soon, Henry joined them. 422 00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,840 From the age of about seven, the young Henry Purcell was 423 00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:57,520 singing for Charles II in the Chapel Royal here at Hampton Court, 424 00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,840 or wherever else the King happened to be in residence. 425 00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,160 By the time that he joined the choir, 426 00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,840 the Chapel Royal had recovered all its former glory. 427 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:10,360 This meant, as for the last three centuries, that Purcell was 428 00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:15,560 now a pupil in by far the best music school in the kingdom. 429 00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:21,600 # My soul does magnify the Lord... # 430 00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,880 As a choirboy, he learned to read music at sight, 431 00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:28,160 to perform confidently on the grandest occasions, 432 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:32,120 and also to play and improvise on keyboard instruments, 433 00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:36,080 which gave him an insight into the basic principles of composition. 434 00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,760 "Some of the forwardest and brightest 435 00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,800 "children of the Chapel began to be masters of composing. 436 00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:48,080 "This His Majesty greatly encouraged, 437 00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,200 "by indulging their youthful fancies, 438 00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:54,320 "so that every month at least, they produced something new. 439 00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,480 "Otherwise, it was in vain to hope to please His Majesty." 440 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,200 When his voice broke, 441 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:04,760 he became a kind of apprentice to the senior musicians 442 00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,960 of the Chapel Royal, who included the best composers of the day. 443 00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,000 He transcribed, edited 444 00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:16,200 and arranged their music. He also began to compose seriously himself. 445 00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,640 As well as absorbing the glorious English choral tradition, 446 00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:26,000 Purcell's musical imagination would be influenced by another 447 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:28,160 aspect of his King's tastes. 448 00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,160 Though in most respects Charles restored 449 00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:36,320 the customs of his father's court, he was known to utterly detest 450 00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:41,000 the kind of serious chamber music that Charles I had loved. 451 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,880 So out went esoteric viol fantasias. 452 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:49,160 In came revelry and rhythm to entertain the 'Merry Monarch'. 453 00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:56,720 "He could not bear any music to which he could not keep the time, 454 00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:01,080 "and that he constantly did to all that was presented to him." 455 00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,640 What he wanted to do, he wanted to sit back, tap, 456 00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:09,400 listen to a jolly good tune and have a good dance - it's a 457 00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,240 completely different approach. 458 00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:13,040 But that's also a public approach. 459 00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,560 This is music as part of pleasure. 460 00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,360 For Charles I, I'm sure it was a pleasure also, 461 00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:25,000 but it was a much more intellectual, refined pleasure. 462 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,720 Refinement is not a word that springs to mind with Charles II. 463 00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:35,880 In exile during the years of Cromwell's republic, 464 00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,600 Charles had spent a lot of time with his wealthy, 465 00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:40,640 autocratic cousin, Louis XIV. 466 00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:47,320 At the French court he saw grand opera-ballet, learned new 467 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:52,200 and fashionable dances, and heard the band of 24 violinists, 468 00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,720 drilled by the great Jean Baptiste Lully. 469 00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:59,320 When Charles returned to England, he brought back French tastes, 470 00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:03,200 French fashions, and a determination to have exactly 471 00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:05,680 the same number of violinists himself. 472 00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,720 This was a crucial step on the road to the orchestra. 473 00:34:15,720 --> 00:34:19,560 Violins are the foundation of orchestral sound to this day. 474 00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,080 Charles loved their sound so much he even wanted to hear them 475 00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,240 in his Chapel Royal. 476 00:34:28,240 --> 00:34:31,160 His royal taste led to a unique English form which 477 00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,440 Henry Purcell would make his own. 478 00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:37,360 The "symphony anthem" alternates rich string segments with 479 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,080 sung sacred texts. 480 00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,400 # Rejoice in the Lord alway And again 481 00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:47,280 # I say rejoice Rejoice in the Lord alway 482 00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:55,320 # And again I say rejoice. # 483 00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,680 Not everyone approved of this new approach to Church music. 484 00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,360 The diarist John Evelyn grumbled. 485 00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:15,960 "24 violins after the French fantastical light way! 486 00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,080 "Better suited to a tavern or a playhouse than a church." 487 00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:22,760 Only a few years before, 488 00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,280 even the sound of an organ in church had been controversial. 489 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:33,040 Now, Charles was rolling back the boundaries of musical taste, just as 490 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,920 Purcell was expanding the creative possibilities of musical form. 491 00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:49,280 # Be careful for nothing But in every thing 492 00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,360 # By prayer and supplication With thanksgiving 493 00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,800 # Let your requests be... # 494 00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,720 There's an operatic quality to the music Purcell 495 00:35:58,720 --> 00:36:01,920 writes for the soloists. He was clearly paying attention to 496 00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:03,760 developments in Italy at the time. 497 00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:09,840 # By prayer and supplication With thanksgiving 498 00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:14,880 # Let your requests Be made known unto God. # 499 00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:23,200 But he was also writing here for the specific voices of the Chapel Royal. 500 00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:32,160 With the Restoration, female singers had begun to perform on stage 501 00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:36,040 and even at court, but the Chapel was still a male preserve. 502 00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,200 So Purcell wrote the top line here for a counter-tenor. 503 00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:49,400 # Through Jesus Christ, our Lord 504 00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,600 # Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. # 505 00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,080 Purcell made fair copies of his sacred anthems into this 506 00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:05,520 scorebook here, in his own handwriting. 507 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:08,480 But Purcell didn't only write sacred music. 508 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:17,720 Turn the book over, like this, and we find from the other end, 509 00:37:17,720 --> 00:37:20,600 a similar record of the secular music that he 510 00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:23,120 composed for the court of Charles II. 511 00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,880 These are odes to mark royal birthdays, weddings, 512 00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,280 military victories and peace treaties. 513 00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:35,520 # Welcome! Welcome! Vicegerent of the Mighty King 514 00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:40,520 # That made and governs everything. # 515 00:37:42,720 --> 00:37:46,160 This is one of Purcell's welcome odes, written for the annual 516 00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,280 occasion of the King's return to London from the country. 517 00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,840 Why on Earth welcome the King back to his own capital, 518 00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:58,760 and moreover do it over and over again, at the same time each year? 519 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,200 Partly, it was sycophantic nonsense. 520 00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,040 The court followed the same routine every year, 521 00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:08,920 with the summer at Windsor and the winters in London. 522 00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,000 The odes here gave a ceremonial shape to the year, just as, 523 00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,440 once upon a time, the Church's calendar had done before the Reformation. 524 00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,160 One of the reasons why Purcell isn't listened to as often now as 525 00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:32,440 he should be is that his genius was poured into this kind of occasional 526 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:36,120 royal piece which teeters on the verge of absurdity today. 527 00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,080 The welcome ode to Charles, you sung it with an admirably 528 00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:57,000 straight face and as though you actually believed it. 529 00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:00,480 Do you simply go into a state of suspension on the words? 530 00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,080 Well, I think you have to kind of sing what you've been given. 531 00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:06,360 But it's set very well, it's very easy to understand. 532 00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:10,200 However clumsy the words... Yes. ..they're still made to work. Exactly. 533 00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,880 Purcell's very good at making the music move with what the 534 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,520 words are doing. He makes it clear what he's trying to say. 535 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,800 I'm relatively confident that he had a jolly good sense of humour. 536 00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,200 I think there's an, an amount of tongue-in-cheekness going on, certainly. 537 00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:39,880 Whatever Purcell thought of the odes, 538 00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,640 there's no doubt that the King would have approved. 539 00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,080 He's addressed at one point as "our mortal deity". 540 00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:52,400 Charles, like his father, believed he ruled by divine right, but 541 00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:56,040 he was at least politically shrewd enough not to press the point home. 542 00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,920 And then he's succeeded by a king who has absolutely no 543 00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,760 sense of political reality whatever. 544 00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:07,920 Though Charles fathered many, many children, none of them 545 00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,080 were by his Queen, so none were legitimate heirs. 546 00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:16,440 When he died in 1685, the throne passed instead to his brother, 547 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:21,960 James, who would reopen the wounds of the religious divide once more. 548 00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:25,280 Because James had, scandalously and publicly, 549 00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,720 converted to Catholicism a few years previously. 550 00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,000 Fears of what this meant were initially vanquished by James' 551 00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,680 magnificent Coronation. 552 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:39,800 Purcell, of course, wrote the music. 553 00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:49,640 His genius is such that he produces music which immediately 554 00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,680 raises the musical game of the coronation service. 555 00:40:54,280 --> 00:41:01,160 For example, My Heart Is Inditing starts in a very dense way, there's a seven-part vocal group... 556 00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:09,920 # My heart is inditing My heart is inditing 557 00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,000 And the vocal parts start one at a time, 558 00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,440 singing the words after each other. 559 00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:20,280 # My heart is inditing My heart is inditing 560 00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,760 So, you build up the texture, so it sounds like a very busy, colourful tapestry. 561 00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,000 There was this sense of trying to achieve, in a way, 562 00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:35,080 a pictorial idea of what the Coronation is. 563 00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:54,520 Purcell's anthem is the best music yet performed at a Coronation. 564 00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:57,560 It's also on much the largest scale. 565 00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:01,480 The words are new and there'd never even been an anthem at this 566 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:05,720 point in the service, the Coronation of the Queen, before. 567 00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:07,400 Why all the fuss now? 568 00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:13,200 # She shall be brought unto The King in raiment of needlework 569 00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:16,920 # She shall be brought... # 570 00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:22,280 The answer lies in what was left out. 571 00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:26,240 The Coronation of the Queen, which was simpler and far shorter than 572 00:42:26,240 --> 00:42:30,680 that of the King, normally followed on the Coronation Communion service. 573 00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:35,920 But in 1685, both the King, James II, 574 00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,600 and the Queen, Mary of Modena, were Roman Catholics, 575 00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:43,840 and absolutely refused to take the Protestant Communion. 576 00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:47,440 The omission of the Communion service left a gaping hole 577 00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:51,760 spiritually and musically at the heart of the service, which the 578 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:56,600 splendours of Purcell's music were almost certainly designed to fill. 579 00:42:57,720 --> 00:43:03,040 # With joy and gladness... # 580 00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:37,720 Though Purcell successfully diverted 581 00:43:37,720 --> 00:43:41,280 attention from James' Catholicism at the Coronation, 582 00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:47,120 the new King's faith was harder to ignore once his reign was under way. 583 00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,880 Things could have been very different if 584 00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:55,480 James had had only a modicum more political skill, perhaps, 585 00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:59,040 can one put it differently, had been even moderately dishonest! 586 00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,480 Rather than a, you know, a determined Catholic convert. 587 00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,240 But James believed he had been chosen by God to lead 588 00:44:12,240 --> 00:44:15,000 the whole nation back to the Catholic faith. 589 00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,200 The result, within three years, was open rebellion. 590 00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:28,000 The rebels sang a popular song of the day which lampooned 591 00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:32,880 the hopes of Catholics, complete with the mocking cod-"Oirish" lyrics. 592 00:44:39,240 --> 00:44:41,920 # Lillibullero, bullen a la 593 00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,120 # Lillibullero, bullen a la. # 594 00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:51,600 It became the popular rallying cry against King James II. 595 00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,840 "The whole army, and the people, both in city and country, 596 00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:58,720 "were singing it perpetually." 597 00:44:58,720 --> 00:45:00,840 # Bullen a la. # 598 00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:13,160 It's only a song, but it sang King James II out of three kingdoms. 599 00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:22,000 In 1688, James was deposed by his own daughter Mary, 600 00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,000 and her husband, William of Orange, who invaded from the Netherlands, 601 00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,080 at the invitation of James' leading subjects. 602 00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,840 William and Mary were Protestants, and so, forever more, 603 00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:37,960 was to be Britain's monarchy. 604 00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:40,440 It was known as the Glorious Revolution 605 00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,840 and it changed the meaning of monarchy, and its music, forever. 606 00:45:49,720 --> 00:45:52,840 William and Mary were crowned the following April. 607 00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:56,160 But this was to be a very different service from any 608 00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:57,360 of its predecessors. 609 00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,600 The preacher at the Coronation rejoiced in the fact 610 00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:05,640 that in 1688, the English had chosen the happy, 611 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:10,080 middle-way between the anarchical despotism of France on the one 612 00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:15,520 hand, and the Republican chaos and disorder of the English Commonwealth on the other hand. 613 00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,040 He was roundly applauded by the audience. 614 00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:23,000 The political atmosphere was further heightened by the presence, 615 00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:24,800 for the first time, of MPs. 616 00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:34,640 This was the inaugural event of a limited parliamentary monarchy. 617 00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:36,520 Divine right was dead 618 00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:40,080 and the sacredness of kings very nearly died with it. 619 00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:46,360 But if the Coronation was no longer a sacred rite, 620 00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:49,600 which consecrated a priest-king, what point was 621 00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,240 there in Purcell writing sublime music for the occasion? 622 00:46:55,520 --> 00:47:00,400 # Praise the Lord 623 00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:06,360 # Praise the Lord O Jerusalem 624 00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,280 "Praise the Lord O Jerusalem" seems rather... 625 00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:20,280 ..austere. It starts in the minor key, which is 626 00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:24,840 an unusual choice of a composer for a praising psalm. 627 00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,440 It's written in a more intimate way 628 00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:31,560 and a less obviously jolly, flamboyant way. 629 00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:39,440 # For kings shall be Thy nursing fathers... # 630 00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,440 The texts chosen reflect the changed circumstances - 631 00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,160 the Queen is given equal weight with the King. 632 00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:53,200 # For Queens shall be # Thy nursing mothers... # 633 00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,560 But Queen Mary thought the Coronation "all vanity", 634 00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:02,160 King William thought it "a Popish absurdity". 635 00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,960 Purcell's music no longer had any raison d'etre. 636 00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,600 Without wishing in any way to denigrate the music, 637 00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:11,240 it sounds less expensive than 638 00:48:11,240 --> 00:48:15,560 music of "My Heart Is Inditing" of a few years earlier. 639 00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,600 It's saying this is a little bit more pared down, 640 00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:22,760 it's less ostentatious, it's a little bit more sombre. 641 00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:34,120 At previous coronations, music had acted to sanctify the monarchy. 642 00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:38,720 From now on, that's not what composers would be required 643 00:48:38,720 --> 00:48:41,680 to do in the Abbey, or anywhere else. 644 00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,920 William and Mary largely withdrew from the traditional 645 00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,800 centre of music and monarchy, the Palace of Whitehall, 646 00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,240 and came instead to Hampton Court, which they 647 00:49:01,240 --> 00:49:03,760 commissioned Christopher Wren to rebuild. 648 00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:11,600 It was a case of out with the old and in with the new. 649 00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:15,040 Out went the opulent private apartments of Henry VIII 650 00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:20,400 and his queens, in came William III's plain-Jane baroque. 651 00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:26,880 Sober, practical, modern. A bit like William III himself. 652 00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:31,360 As for music, whether sacred or secular, he was indifferent, 653 00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:33,120 if not actually hostile. 654 00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:42,960 Nothing escaped William's reforming zeal. Not the fabric, 655 00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:46,680 the liturgy, or the musical traditions of the Chapel Royal. 656 00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:54,200 Having survived both reformation and revolution, all of these were 657 00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:59,080 to be shipwrecked on the rock of William III's religious principles. 658 00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,120 For William, as a committed, lifelong Calvinist, 659 00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:05,600 was a Protestant of the most thorough-going sort. 660 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:09,160 This meant that he thought many, if not most, of the rituals 661 00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:13,720 of the Chapel Royal were Popish, idolatrous survivals of the worst sort. 662 00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:23,160 The elaborate and theatrical music of the Chapel Royal, 663 00:50:23,160 --> 00:50:25,040 always a Protestant bugbear, 664 00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:28,880 was struck down, when, as one of their first acts, 665 00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:33,760 William and Mary forbad the use of strings here in the Chapel Royal. 666 00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:38,600 It sounds so little, but it destroyed so much. 667 00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:42,320 The glorious and quintessentially English symphony anthem 668 00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:45,880 died a strange and sudden death. 669 00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:49,040 But, most striking of all was the effect 670 00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:52,240 on the Chapel Royal itself, which changed from 671 00:50:52,240 --> 00:50:58,280 a hothouse of creativity, to the merest backwater, almost overnight. 672 00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:03,560 Purcell, the great symphony anthem composer, 673 00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:05,560 found himself neglected. 674 00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,320 But he did still have one royal commission - 675 00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,480 writing the annual birthday ode for Queen Mary. 676 00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:19,880 His composition for 1690 represented the culmination 677 00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:22,920 of a century of instrumental innovation at court. 678 00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:29,320 From Charles I's chamber concerts, 679 00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:34,720 through Charles II's 24 violins, to this - 680 00:51:34,720 --> 00:51:37,720 A full Baroque orchestra! 681 00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:46,600 "Arise my Muse", suddenly you have everything there, 682 00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:49,040 you have the trumpets, the oboes, the violins, 683 00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:52,800 and Purcell doesn't allow the trumpets to just play simple parts. 684 00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,160 They play pretty much the same kind of material 685 00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,720 that the violins are playing, so they were incredibly virtuosic. 686 00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:15,360 And also the oboes, it's a quite a strange new animal 687 00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,880 which came into the orchestra at this time. 688 00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,000 It's extraordinary the way he can combine those instruments, 689 00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:23,240 the way he orchestrates those instruments. 690 00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,760 It's unbelievably skilful and colourful use of an orchestra. 691 00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:35,960 And yet, just two days after Arise My Muse was first performed, 692 00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:38,360 William III ordered the Lord Chamberlain 693 00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:41,760 to slash the number of royal musicians by a third. 694 00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:51,160 Court music, brought to such heights by Charles I and Charles II, 695 00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:53,840 went the same way as the Chapel Royal - 696 00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:58,520 downsized, neglected, now used merely for the odd ball. 697 00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:05,880 Purcell was forced to take his genius elsewhere 698 00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:08,240 and the orchestra went with him. 699 00:53:08,240 --> 00:53:10,760 The work of both would henceforth be enjoyed 700 00:53:10,760 --> 00:53:14,480 by a rather broader audience than the exclusive world of the court. 701 00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:21,840 This was to be Purcell's principal habitat 702 00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:24,600 for the remainder of his career. 703 00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:29,880 Up to the Glorious Revolution, Purcell had been a court composer, 704 00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:33,760 but now that William III's austere Protestantism 705 00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:38,360 declared that Purcell's luscious, orchestrally-accompanied music 706 00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,120 was too theatrical for the Chapel Royal, 707 00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:43,040 Purcell turned to the theatre proper. 708 00:53:47,240 --> 00:53:52,760 And henceforward wrote almost exclusively for the London stage. 709 00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:57,560 But one thing didn't change, however - Purcell's staggering productivity. 710 00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,840 In the course of the next five years 711 00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:03,280 he wrote music for over 40 stage plays. 712 00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:16,480 Purcell even wrote one of the very first English operas, 713 00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:20,720 Dido and Anaeas, though it was scarcely performed in his lifetime. 714 00:54:20,720 --> 00:54:23,400 Restoration audiences instead preferred 715 00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,200 spectacular romps like King Arthur. 716 00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:36,400 # The pleasures of love 717 00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:43,320 # No joys are above the pleasures of love 718 00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:52,200 # No joys, no joys, no joys, no joys, no joys, 719 00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,320 # No joys are above 720 00:54:56,320 --> 00:55:03,880 # Love, love, love, no joys are above 721 00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:11,880 # The pleasures, the pleasures, the pleasures of love. # 722 00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:19,440 Despite Purcell's resounding success in the theatre 723 00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:23,880 there's a sense of loss, of exile. 724 00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:26,240 Purcell was no longer in demand 725 00:55:26,240 --> 00:55:29,440 in the court that had nourished his genius. 726 00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:33,240 His principle librettist, John Dryden, had actually been dismissed 727 00:55:33,240 --> 00:55:36,640 from his royal post of Poet Laureate. 728 00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:41,120 Even the form of the dramatic opera with its lavish combination 729 00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:45,840 of music, words, dance and spectacle was a descendant 730 00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:49,240 in exile of the court masques of Charles I's reign. 731 00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:55,280 And all of them, composer, librettist, dramatic opera, 732 00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:59,480 were on the London stage only because they were unwanted 733 00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:02,120 at the new court of the Glorious Revolution. 734 00:56:08,720 --> 00:56:12,320 But then English music suffered a still more grievous blow. 735 00:56:15,720 --> 00:56:20,120 Purcell died, at the - even then - shockingly early age of 36. 736 00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,960 At the start of 1695, he'd written this music 737 00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:30,000 to mourn the premature passing of Queen Mary. 738 00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:34,960 Before the year was out, it was played at his own funeral. 739 00:56:47,240 --> 00:56:50,760 That flat, hollow sound - it's the majesty, and the finality, of death. 740 00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:57,720 It is no exaggeration to say that English music died with Purcell. 741 00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:03,080 He was the last composer in the great Chapel Royal tradition 742 00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:05,840 which had stretched back through Orlando Gibbons 743 00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:09,840 to Thomas Tallis, to John Dunstable and even beyond. 744 00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:13,760 But where, now, was capable of producing a successor? 745 00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:22,200 The great tragedy of England is that nobody steps into the gap 746 00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,400 as far as music is concerned. 747 00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:30,160 Once for the religio-political reasons of 1688-89, 748 00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,880 the Chapel Royal is shuttered down, nothing steps into the gap. 749 00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:42,200 It leaves England with an appetite for music, 750 00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:44,720 but with no musical infrastructure to provide it. 751 00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:50,400 Audiences continued to pack out London's theatres. 752 00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:53,640 But Purcell's death left a vacuum of native talent. 753 00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:58,400 HE SINGS A PIECE BY HANDEL, IN CASTRATI VOICE 754 00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:00,760 And so, as I'll explore next time, 755 00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:04,240 the London stage was invaded by Italian opera. 756 00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:08,560 Foreign composers, foreign stars, performing in a foreign language. 757 00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:16,200 Paradoxically, this happened just at the same time 758 00:58:16,200 --> 00:58:19,480 that Britain became THE great power in Europe. 759 00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,320 And more ironically still, the composer who restored 760 00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:27,160 the fortunes of music made in Britain was German - Georg Handel. 761 00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:27,160 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd