Category: Sheet music

Edited by H. Diack Johnstone & Ryan Patten
Musica Britannica MB111
ISBN: 9780852499771 ISMN: 9790220229312
xxxiii + 132pp, £115.00
Stainer & Bell

Both of the settings in this latest volume of Musica Britannica were written to celebrate the return of George II from his ancestral home in Hanover. The earlier dates from 1745 and is a “numbers” setting; each of the verses is a self-contained movement. In contrast, the 1750 Te Deum is a continuous patchwork of contrasting sections. Both are written for four-part chorus and orchestra (strings with pairs of oboes and trumpets, and one flute in the first, two flutes in the second). The soprano line divides occasionally in both Verse and and Chorus sections. Musically – and most likely by coincidence – for me, the most interesting music in both settings is the “Vouchsafe, O Lord”; in 1745, Greene opted for an alto soloist with flute and cello obbligatos, while the much shorter later version opens with oboe and violin before the alto enters. This is music that definitely needs to be performed and recorded, if only to demonstrate the qualities of Greene’s output; for too long, he (and, I might add, Boyce and Stanley, to name but two much more than “worthy” English composers) has languished in Handel’s shadow.

Indeed, the preface here explains that that was true in their own day; even though he was the official composer to the Chapel Royal, Greene was often overlooked at major celebrations, with music by Handel performed instead. The preface also includes an expression that made me scratch my head: “Most unusually for its time, the scoring of the Te Deum, like Bach’s B minor mass, involves two flutes in addition to two oboes (and bassoon)”. Someone needs to familiarise themself with music at the Dresden court…

Unusually for MB, the critical commentary is short; both works survive as single sources, so there is no need to cross-reference differences between manuscripts. It is, of course, no less meticulous than previous volumes, and this 110th title will stand proudly with the others in this prestigious series.

Brian Clark

Edited by Alan Howard
Musica Britannica MB108
ISBN: 9780852499696 ISMN: 9790220228100
xlviii + 127pp, £115.00
Stainer & Bell

This excellent volume contains the two pieces Croft wrote to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 – an earn his Oxford doctorate – and an ode (the editor Alan Howarth argues) to mark the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. if, as likely, that is the case, the composer would still have been a teenager, so the infelicities identified in the informative introduction might be forgiven. The main problem with the source (a later copy by one of Croft’s students from the 1720s) is the labelling of the instrumental parts – in the opening movement, there is a trumpet line (or two trumpet lines?) with unplayable notes, and the editor interprets the next four lines as violins where it strikes me as more likely that the first pair are oboes and the next pair violins. In the following movements, an alto is accompanied by recorders, the soprano and bass by strings, the bass by violins, and the full ensemble renders the short concluding chorus. The Utrecht pieces, whose performances in Oxford were noticed in the press, are far more substantial and it is clear that in the intervening years, Croft has matured as a composer. His debt to the Purcellian court ode is self-evident. Where we nowadays tend to think of him as being obscured by Handel, there is no sense in which this music is overshadowed by the German’s music for the Utrecht celebrations – indeed, some of his best choral writing might suggest that the influence worked in the opposite direction! I hope the availability of these fine pieces will inspire musicians to take up his cause – there really is a wealth of beautiful music here!

Brian Clark