¹ ‘A Critical Discourse upon Opera’s in England, and a Means proposed for their Improvement’, appended to an anonymous translation of A Comparison Between the French and Italian Musick and Opera’s … To which is added a Critical Discourse upon Opera’s in England (London: William Lewis, 1709), pp. 62–86. The exact day and month are provided by a contemporary hand in the British Library copy. The facsimile edition with Introduction by Charles Cudworth (Farnborough: Gregg International Publishers, 1968), reproduces an annotated copy at Cambridge, University Library (W.26.72*). There is no consensus on the authorship of the ‘Critical Discourse’, which is variously attributed to Nicola Haym or John Ernst Galliard. John Hawkins credits Galliard, a view which is endorsed by Stoddard Lincoln; see John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, 5 vols (London: T. Payne, 1776), V, p. 136; and Stoddard Lincoln, ‘J.E. Galliard and a Critical Discourse’, Musical Quarterly, 53 (1967), 347–64. Lowell Lindgren points to a source suggesting Haym; Lowell Lindgren, ‘The Accomplishments of the Learned and Ingenious Nicola Francesco Haym (1678–1729)’, Studi Musicali, 16 (1987), 247–380 (p. 292). The attribution to Galliard is recently accepted by DeSimone, Alison C., The Power of Pastiche: Musical Miscellany and Cultural Identity in Early Eighteenth-Century England (Clemson, SC: Clemson University Press, 2021), pp. 64, 183–84Google Scholar.

² The basis for the corrected title of the opera by Jakob Greber is set forth in Thomas McGeary, Opera and Politics in Queen Anne’s Britain, 1705–1714 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2022), p. 143 and plate 4.3.

³ ‘A Critical Discourse’, pp. 65, 68.

⁴ ‘A Critical Discourse’, p. 65 in facsimile edition, ed. Charles Cudworth.

⁵ Hawkins, A General History, V, p. 136. Later, Hawkins avers that ‘Arsinoe consisted of English words fitted to Italian music’ (V, p. 148).

⁶ Charles Burney, A General History of Music, 4 vols (London: T. Payne, 1776–89), IV (1789), 201. It was more likely sixteen, eleven and three performances in its three seasons, respectively.

⁷ London, British Library, Egerton MS 3664.

⁸ Lincoln, Stoddard, ‘The Librettos and Lyrics of William Congreve’, in British Theatre and the Other Arts, 1660– 1800 , ed. by Kenny, Shirley Strum (Washington DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1984), pp. 116–32Google Scholar (p. 126).

⁹ Lincoln, Stoddard, ‘Congreve’s “Semele”’, Music and Letters, 44 (1963), 417– 18Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Lowell Lindgren, ‘A Bibliographic Scrutiny of Dramatic Works Set by Giovanni and His Brother Antonio Maria Bononcini’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1972), p. 173.

¹¹ Milhous, Judith, ‘New Light on Vanbrugh’s Haymarket Theatre Project’, Theatre Survey, 17 (1976), 143–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 153).

¹² J. Merrill Knapp, ‘Eighteenth-Century Opera in London before Handel, 1705–1710’, in British Theatre and the Other Arts, 1660–1800, pp. 92–104 (p. 94).

¹³ Price, Curtis, Music in the Restoration Theatre: With a Catalogue of Instrumental Music in the Plays, 1665–1713 ([Ann Arbor, MI]: UMI Research Press, 1979), p. 115 Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Haun, Eugene, But Hark! More Harmony; the Libretti of Restoration Opera in English (Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University Press, 1971), p. 177 Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Winn, James, Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 400–10Google Scholar; Winn does acknowledge Arsinoe’s contemporary popularity, ‘despite its shortcomings’.

¹⁶ Fiske, Roger, English Theatre Music in the Eighteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 32–33 Google Scholar.

¹⁷ ‘The Epilogue. As It Ought to Have Been Spoken’; [A. Chaves], The Cares of Love, or a Night’s Adventure (London: W. Davis, 1705), pp. 52–54.

¹⁸ Ibid., and Estcourt, Richard, Prunella: An Interlude (London: Bernard Lintott, 1708).Google Scholar

¹⁹ The Power of Musick, p. 12; appended to Moral Reflections and Pleasant Remarks on the Vertues, Vices, and Humours of Mankind (London: R. Burrough, 1707).

²⁰ Muses Mercury, January 1707, p. 10.

²¹ John Oldmixon, ‘The Ninth Epistle of Boileau’, Muses Mercury, September 1707, pp. 198–205 (pp. 201–02).

²² Letter from Philip Percival to Sir John Percival (later the Earl of Egmont) , 25 March 1707, London, British Library, Add. MS 47025, f. 72^r; also in Historical Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont, 2 vols (Dublin: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1909), II, 216. See also the letter from Philip Percival to Sir John Percival, 7 February 1707, f. 70^v: ‘The Opera of Camilla has been one of the chief diversions of the Town this long time, and Arsinoe is forgot’.

²³ The Long Vacation. A Satyr: Address’d to all Disconsolable Trades (London: H. Hills, 1708), p. 8.

²⁴ Nugæ Canoræ: or, The Taste of the Town in Poetry and Music (London: J. Morphew, 1709), p. 27.

²⁵ Additional works known by Clayton are Pastoral Masque (premiered 3 May 1710, libretto by ?John Hughes); The Feast of Alexander (John Dryden/Hughes), The Passion of Sappho (William Harrison), and If Wine and Music (Matthew Prior) (all 1711); Ode for the Prince’s Birthday and Ode on the King (both premiered? 13 December 1716); and a new anthem for the Chapel Royal (15 May 1720). Of these works, only the printed Songs (1707) survives for Rosamond.

²⁶ On Rich stealing Arsinoe, see Milhous, ‘New Light’, p. 153; for a suggestion of bribery, see Knapp, ‘Eighteenth-Century Opera in London before Handel’, p. 94.

²⁷ On planning for the new theatre company, Milhous, ‘New Light’, and Thomas McGeary, ‘More Light (and Some Speculation) on Vanbrugh’s Haymarket Theatre Project’, Early Music, 48 (2020), 91–104.

²⁸ In England at the time, ‘opera’ was an elastic term and could embrace English semi- or dramatic operas, plays with masques and spectacles, as well as all-sung works.

²⁹ For a revisionist account that advances the dates of these operas, see Thomas McGeary, ‘A New Perspective on Opera’s “Critical Decade” in London’, Early Music (forthcoming).

³⁰ For an exhaustive documentary study of the progress of the building of the Haymarket theatre, the controversies surrounding it, and reconstruction of the original building, see Graham F. Barlow, ‘From Tennis Court to Opera House’, 3 vols (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, 1983), I, pp. 256–431; summarized in Barlow, ‘Vanbrugh’s Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket, 1703–9’, Early Music, 17 (1989), 515–21. Also on the theatre: Milhous, Judith, ‘The Capacity of Vanbrugh’s Theatre in the Haymarket’, Theatre History Studies, 4 (1984), 38–46 Google Scholar; Olleson, Philip, ‘Vanbrugh and Opera at the Queen’s Theatre, Haymarket’, Theatre Notebook, 26 (1972), 94–101 Google Scholar; and Nalbach, Daniel, The King’s Theatre, 1704–1867: London’s First Italian Opera House (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1972), pp. 130–42Google Scholar.

³¹ Quoted in J. D. Alsop, ‘The Quarrel between Sir John Vanbrugh and George Powell’, Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research, 2nd ser., 1.1 (Summer 1990), 28–29.

³² Diverting Post, no. 1 (28 October 1704).

³³ London, Victoria and Albert Museum, D.25–28–1891. Selected illustrations in Roger Fiske, English Theatre Music, and Edgar de N. Mayhew, Sketches by Thornhill in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1967), plates 2 and 3.

³⁴ Clayton explains how he arranged for production at the Drury Lane in his Preface to The Passion of Sappho, and Feast of Alexander (1711), a wordbook for concerts at York Buildings; reprinted in Thomas McGeary, ‘Thomas Clayton and the Introduction of Italian Opera to England’, Philological Quarterly, 77 (1998), 171–86.

³⁵ Diverting Post, no. 3 (9–16 December 1704).

³⁶ Daily Courant, no. 859 (16 January 1705).

³⁷ Price, Curtis, ‘The Critical Decade for English Music Drama, 1700–1710’, Harvard Library Bulletin, 26 (1978), 38–76 (pp. 45–46)Google Scholar; also in Music in the Restoration Theatre, pp. 114–15. Price points to directions in the play text of Centlivre’s Love’s Contrivance that read ‘let the Diversion begin’; he thus argues ‘England’s first Italian opera was introduced by actors, who, once the music began, sat wordless at the side of the stage and watched the masque as did the audience proper’ (p. 46). The argument rests on misreading the stage directions, and no other contemporary source mentions such an arrangement.

³⁸ Caldwell, John, The Oxford History of English Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991–99)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, I: From the Beginnings to c.1715 (1991), p. 587, dismisses Arsinoe as ‘a pasticcio from Italian sources’. Cf. Knapp, ‘Eighteenth-Century Opera in London’, 94 (‘probably gathered various Italian arias together’); Walker, Ernst, A History of Music in England, 3rd ed., rev. and ed. by, J. A. Westrup (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 219 Google Scholar (‘The music seems to have been adapted from various Italian songs’); Young, Percy M., A History of British Music (London: Ernest Benn, 1967), p. 282 Google Scholar (‘Clayton adapted Italian music or composed in a pseudo-Italian style’); Henry Davey, History of English Music, 2nd ed. (London: J. Curwen & Sons, 1921), p. 351 (‘compiled from pieces he had brought’ [from Italy]). An ambiguous phrase from Spectator, no. 258 (26 December 1711), that Clayton ‘brought over [from Italy] the Opera of Arsinoe’, could refer just to the wordbook.

³⁹ An early source for collaboration is discussed in Allardyce Nicoll, ‘Italian Opera in England: The First Five Years’, Anglia, 46 (n.s. 34) (1922), 257–81 (p. 259 n.1). White, Eric Walter, The Rise of English Opera (New York: Philosophical Library, 1951), p. 48 Google Scholar, accepts Clayton as composer but states that Nicola Haym and Charles Dieupart shared in the composition. The limited information about the London professional careers of Haym and Dieupart is summarized in DeSimone, The Power of Pastiche, pp. 94–95, 182–83, 173–78 (Haym), and 172–73, 175–78, 187–88, 190–92, 219–21 (Dieupart).

⁴⁰ On the importance of the basso continuo group, see Peter Holman, Before the Baton: Musical Direction and Conducting in Stuart and Georgian Britain (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), pp. 215–22, and on the importance of Dieupart and Haym, pp. 215–18.

⁴¹ Daily Courant, no. 859 (16 January 1705).

⁴² Muses Mercury, no. 1 (January 1707), p. 10.

⁴³ The various editions are described in David Hunter, Opera and Song Books Published in England, 1703–1726: A Descriptive Bibliography (London: Bibliographical Society, 1997), nos 12, 12a, 26, 29–31. The edition of Walsh, no. 29, is available online <http://www.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/sm-67203_arsinoe_queen_of_cypress.html> [accessed 22 June 2023].

⁴⁴ London, British Library, Egerton MS 3664; Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, M1500.C685 A6 1705 F. The latter is available online <https://houghtonlib.tumblr.com/post/113784964428/clayton-thomas-1673-1725-arsinoe-queen-of> and <https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:49451812$1i> [both accessed 22 June 2023]. Both manuscripts are in upright format, typical of English copyists; cf. illustration of the title page of The Indian Queen, in Henry Purcell, The Indian Queen, ed. by Margaret Laurie and Andrew Pinnock, Purcell Society Edition, XIX (London: Novello, 1994), unnumbered plate, and other manuscripts cited therein.The paging and minor details in set descriptions and stage directions etc. differ between the two copies, which appear to be made by the same scribe, and all three issues of the wordbook (see below). At present it is not clear why the copies vary. That two fair copies exist may be Rich’s practice to have two manuscript scores provided; his contract with Nicola Haym calls for delivery of two copies of the score for Camilla; see Lindgren, ‘Bibliographic Scrutiny’, pp. 169–70.

⁴⁵ Letter from William Cleland to James Erskine, 6 December: Edinburgh, National Records of Scotland, GD 124/15/259/3, p. 6. Calhoun Winton was the first to bring this letter to attention.

⁴⁶ London, National Archives, Commitment lists for Fleet Prison. PRIS 1/2, p. 48.

⁴⁷ London, British Library, Blenheim Papers, Add. MS 61,611, f. 244. The subscription sheet is transcribed and printed, and signers identified in McGeary, Opera and Politics in Queen Anne’s Britain, Table 5.2.

⁴⁸ See note 4 (above); see also, for example, Tatler, no. 166 (2 May 1710): ‘Mr. Clayton, the Author of Arsinoe, made me a Visit’.

⁴⁹ There are three issues of the opera’s wordbook. The first issue (1705) clarifies on the title page: ‘After the Italian Manner. All Sung’; this issue, in forty-eight pages, is ESTC (English Short Title Catalogue) N30676. The second issue (also 1705), in forty pages, (ESTC T126975) was reissued with no significant variants in 1707 (ESTC T162520). The typographic layout of the second issue reduces the number of pages; the textual differences between the issues are insignificant. R. N. Cunningham describes the differences in typesetting of signatures in several copies of the wordbook. He does not specifically record the forty-page edition; Cunningham, ‘A Bibliography of the Writings of Peter Anthony Motteux’. Oxford Bibliographical Society. Proceedings and Papers, 3 (1931–1933), 317–36 (pp. 329–30). What Cunningham calls ‘editions’ are more properly issues, since there are no significant textual changes. Wordbook of Arsinoe. Queen of Cyprus, first issue (London: Jacob Tonson, 1705), Eighteenth-Century Collections Online <https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CB0130353113/ECCO> [accessed 22 June 2023]. Wordbook of Arsinoe. Queen of Cyprus, second issue (London: Jacob Tonson, 1705), Eighteenth-Century Collections Online <https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CW0115614987/ECCO> [accessed 22 June 2023].

⁵⁰ See a list of the works of the English dramatic poets, probably compiled by John Mottley (for the publisher W. Reeve), and appended to Thomas Whincop’s play Scanderberg: or, Love and Liberty (1747), p. 243.

⁵¹ See Robert N. Cunningham, Peter Anthony Motteux, 1663–1718: A Biographical and Critical Study (Oxford: Basil Blackwood and Nott, 1933); and Cunningham, ‘Bibliography of the Writings of Peter Anthony Motteux’, pp. 317–36.

⁵² The English aversion to recitative was remarked upon by Giuseppe Riva in a letter to Ludovico Muratori on 7 September 1726, giving advice on adapting librettos for the London stage: ‘If your friend wishes to send some, he must know that in England they want few recitatives, but thirty arias and one duet at least, distributed over the three acts’. As translated in Deutsch, Otto Erich, Handel: A Documentary Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1955), pp. 185–86Google Scholar (p. 186).

⁵³ L’Arsinoe. Drama per musica da rappresentarsi nel Teatro Formagliari l’Anno MDCLXXVII (Bologna: the heir of Benacci, 1677); the dedication is dated 26 December 1676. Claudio Sartori, I libretti italiani a stampa dalle origini al 1800, 7 vols (Cuneo: Bertola & Locatelli, 1990–94) (henceforth Sartori), I (1990), p. 306 (no. 2895). Eleanor Selfridge-Field dates the opening as 26 December 1676; A New Chronology of Venetian Opera and Related Genres, 1660–1760. The Calendar of Venetian Opera (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp. 123–24. The wordbook is available online at <https://www.loc.gov/item/2010666331/> [accessed 23 June 2023].

⁵⁴ Arsinoe. Drama per musica da recitarsi nel Teatro di S. Angelo l’Anno 1678 (Venice: Francesco Nicolini, 1678); the dedication is dated 30 November 1677. Sartori, I, p. 306 (no. 2896). Selfridge-Field dates the opening as 29 November 1677; A New Chronology of Venetian Opera, pp. 123–24. The wordbook is available online at <https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00048312-6> [accessed 23 June 2023].

⁵⁵ The two manuscript scores are at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice. The score for the Bologna production is Ms. It. IV, Cod. 393 (9917); it is available online at <https://www.internetculturale.it/jmms/iccuviewer/iccu.jsp?id=oai%3A193.206.197.121%3A18%3AVE0049%3AARM0003568> [accessed 23 June 2023]. The score for the Venice production is Ms. It. IV, Cod. 392 (9916); it is available online at <https://www.internetculturale.it/it/16/search/viewresource?id=oai%3A193.206.197.121%3A18%3AVE0049%3AARM0003567> [accessed 23 June 2023].

⁵⁶ The contents of the two manuscript scores are given in Jérôme Bonnet, ‘Arsinoe de Tommaso Stanzani: voyage d’un drame lyrique de Bologna (1676) à Londres (1705)’, Musicorum (2004), 11–42 (pp. 31–36) ; adapted from his dissertation, ‘Arsinoe: voyage d’un drame lyrique de Bologna (1676) à Londres (1705)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Université François Rabelais (Tours), 2006).

⁵⁷ The productions are compared in detail in Bonnet, ‘Arsinoe: voyage d’un drame lyrique’, pp. 38–82, and the manuscript scores on pp. 128–64. The sung allegorical Prologue for Venus, Mercury, Fortuna and the spirits (Genio) of Cyprus and Athens are present in the manuscript score for the Bologna production, but not included in the wordbook. The Prologue and intermedi were printed separately as Prologo, ed intermedi dell’Arsinoe da rappresentarsi nel teatro Formagliari l’anno MDCLXXVII. Poesia del sig. Tomaso Stanzani. Musica del sig. Petronio Franceschini (Bologna: the heir of Benacci, 1677). Sartori, IV (1991), p. 474 (no. 19207); described in Taddeo Wiel, I codici musicali Contariniani del secolo XVII nella R. Biblioteca di san Marco in Venezia (Venice: F. Ongania, 1888), pp. 41–42 (no. 43). In addition to the Prologue, both productions also included two intermedi (balli), which are mentioned in the Venice wordbook, but without music in the score; the Bologna score provides music for the balli, but there is no indication in the wordbook.

⁵⁸ Winn, Queen Anne and the Arts, consulted the British Library score; he consulted only the Venice printed wordbook, so his remarks about the versions of Arsinoe can be disregarded. Bonnet includes a citation to the manuscript score, but did not discusss it. Both manuscripts are cited in DeSimone, The Power of Pastiche, p. 297 n. 118.

⁵⁹ On the publishing history, Hunter, Opera and Song Books Published in England, nos. 12, 12a, 26, 29–31.

⁶⁰ Editions of the printed songs for some operas of the period include the first violin part on the same staves as the vocal line.

⁶¹ As Robert Freeman, ‘Apostolo Zeno’s Reform of the Libretto’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 21 (1968), 321–41, notes: ‘Some Venetian librettists failed to distinguish as unambiguously as did their 18th-century successors between the rhyme schemes and metrical matterns used in recitative and aria, and since late 17th-century Venetian printers of libretti made little apparent effort to distinquish typographically between arias and recitatives, it is impossible to make absolutely accurate calculations about the number of arias in most Venetian operas of the period’ (p. 327).

⁶² Clayton later referred to completing his ‘Studies in Italy’; Spectator, no. 258, 26 December 1711.

⁶³ Clayton’s career is summarized in DeSimone, The Power of Pastiche, pp. 192–208. He likely died in late December 1724; the Lincoln’s Inn Fields accounts of John Rich (Christopher Rich’s son) for 30 December 1724 record, ‘Given towards burying Mr. Clayton 0 10 6.’ Clayton was buried at St Mary le Strand on 31 December 1724. Rich seems to have kept in touch with Clayton, for the latter’s The Passion of Sappho was presented at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 15 November 1718 (information kindly provided by Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson).

⁶⁴ Preface to The Passion of Sappho, [i].

⁶⁵ Use of recitative in England is surveyed in Ian Spink, English Song: Dowland to Purcell (London: Batsford, 1974; rev. with updated bibliography, New York: Taplinger, 1984).

⁶⁶ Dryden, John, ‘Of Heroique Playes. An Essay’, preface to The Conquest of Granada, Part I, in The Works of John Dryden, ed. by Hooker, Edward, Swedenburg, H.T. and others (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956–90)Google Scholar, XI: Plays: The Conquest of Granada, Marriage a-la-Mode, the Assignation, ed. by John Loftis, David Stuart Rodes, and Vinton A. Dearing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 8–18 (p. 9); Motteux, Peter, ‘To the Reader’, preface to The Island Princess (London: Richard Wellington,1699), pp. 8–9 (p. 8)Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ There are a few exceptions to this strict segration of the dramatic and singing casts; futher on this segregation of casts, see McGeary, Opera and Politics in Queen Anne’s Britain, pp. 44, 45, 47, 52–53, 54.

⁶⁸ Preface, The Passion of Sappho.

⁶⁹ Joseph Addison, Spectator, no. 29 (3 April 1711).

⁷⁰ Winn, Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts, pp. 400–01. His example consists of Act I, scenes 2 and 3.

⁷¹ DeSimone’s discussion of Arsinoe in The Power of Pastiche (pp. 192–208) is generally compatible with the one given here, especially the need for clarity of the text; she does not discuss the recitative. Her discussion of the opera focuses on the melodic style and form of the arias. However, instead of Clayton’s term ‘in the Italian manner’, she uses the term ‘Italian style’ and attends to the presence of da capo arias, which emphasize that she sees the opera’s ‘origins in Italian composition’ with the arias as having ‘Italian pedigree’ and ‘Italianate influences’. She does observe, though, how Clayton ‘modified elements of the structure of Italian operas in order to suit English tastes’ (p. 194). DeSimone considers the simpler melodic style a concession to the skills of English singers rather than arising from Clayton’s desired style of text-setting; that the singers, especially Catherine Tofts, were quite capable of more virtuosic singing can be seen in the vocal lines for songs in other operas they sang in.

⁷² Such songs were widely printed in the many publications of vocal music: see Day, Cyrus L. and Murrie, Eleonore B., English Song-Books 1651–1702 (London: Bibliographical Society, 1940)Google Scholar; and Spink, English Song, pp. 261–73.

⁷³ For a detailed analysis of the Purcell multi-sectional song ‘From Silent Shades’, see Bruce Wood, ‘Purcell and His Poets’, Early Music, 43 (2015), 225–31. See also Spink, English Song, pp. 208–18; and Margaret Laurie, ‘Purcell’s Extended Solo Songs’, Musical Times, 1691 (January 1984), 19–25. Spink’s use of the term ‘cantata’ or ‘cantata-like’ (English Song, p. 215) for these songs, is misleading, since the songs do not alternate recitative and aria.

⁷⁴ Clayton’s arias follow neither simple, closed binary dance forms nor the expanded ritornello forms of later Italian arias. In the table, the capital letters represent distinct music-text units. Short introductions (in all but six cases just for basso continuo) and measures of basso continuo are designated by ‘r’; these are not ritornellos in the usual sense in later arias. For clarity in presentation, repetitions of music-text units that are written out in the manuscript scores or Songs are collapsed with repeat signs. Da capos in the sources may be written out or directed.

⁷⁵ A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians, 1485–1714, compiled by Andrew Ashbee and David Lasocki, 2 vols (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), I: pp. 257–59.

⁷⁶ On the contrast between the two styles, see Spink, English Song, pp. 203–23.

⁷⁷ Ibid., p. 221.

⁷⁸ Raynor, Henry, Music in England (London: Robert Hale, 1980), p. 109 Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ DeSimone (see note 69) gives a good discussion of Clayton’s ideas on text setting.

⁸⁰ The primary sources for articulations of this English aesthetic can be found in numerous surveys of English opera (in addition to Clayton’s own writings); for example, Lowell Lindgren, ‘Critiques of Opera in London, 1705–1719’, in Il melodramma italiano in Italia e in Germania nell’ età barocca, Contributi musicologici del Centro Ricerche dell’ A.M.I.S.-Como, 9 (Como: A.M.I.S., 1995), pp. 145–65; Xavier Cervantes, ‘“Tuneful Monsters”: The Castrati and the London Operatic Public, 1667–1737’, Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research, 2nd ser., 13 (1998), 1–24; and Gilman, Todd S., ‘The Italian (Castrato) in London’, in The Work of Opera: Genre, Nationhood, and Sexual Difference, ed. by Dellamora, Richard and Fischlin, Daniel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 49–70 Google Scholar. For a reconsideration of Addison’s well-known writings, see McGeary, Opera and Politics in Queen Anne’s Britain, pp. 286–303.

⁸¹ Burnet, Gilbert, An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (London: Richard Chiswell, 1699), pp. 262–65Google Scholar (p. 262). See also Samson Estwick, The Usefulness of Church-Musick: A Sermon (London: Thomas Bennet, 1696), p. 20; Bedford, Arthur, The Temple Musick (Bristol: William Bonny, 1706), p. 220 Google Scholar; and Bedford, The Great Abuse of Musick (London: John Wyatt, 1711), p. 252. Beford cites specific instances from operas and dramatic operas up through the Italian Almahide and Hydaspes of January and March 1710 (pp. 104–34). Bedford’s key text is I Corinthians 14. 15: ‘I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the Understanding also’.

⁸² Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (written c.1709; pub. London: William Lewis, 1711), line 365. On the afterlife of the conceit, Terry, Richard, ‘“The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense”’, Modern Language Review, 94 (1999), 940–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸³ According to contemporary rosters, a pit orchestra for the period 1704–07 would have comprised twenty to twenty-eight musicians: eight to twelve violins; two to four violas; four or five winds (oboes and bassoons); five to eight cellos and double basses; one or two harpsichords; and a trumpet. Although there is no indication for winds in the manuscript scores of Arsinoe, oboes and bassoons may have doubled the strings. Sample orchestra rosters: (a) draft roster compiled about 1703, in Nicoll, Allardyce, A History of English Drama, 1660–1900, 3rd edn, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 276–78Google Scholar (Nicoll misdates this to 1707; the correct date is given by Milhous ‘New Light’); (b) draft rosters compiled about late 1707, in Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Theatrical Papers 1706–1715 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982)Google Scholar, documents 17 and 18.

⁸⁴ For example, musical entertainments are presented before guests or a court in Colley Cibber, Love’s Last Shift (premiered at Drury Lane, 1696); Abel Roper, The Triumphs of Virtue (Drury Lane, 1697) [an entertainment before a duke]; George Powell, The Imposture Defeated (Drury Lane, 1697/1698) [masques presented before a duke and his court]; Vanbrugh’s adaptation of Fletcher’s The Pilgrim (Drury Lane, 1700), with Dryden’s ‘Secular Masque’; Charles Gildon, Measure for Measure (Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1700) [acts of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas inserted as entertainments before the duke]; George Granville, The Jew of Malta (Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1701) [masque of Peleus and Thetis]; and Thomas Baker, The Humour of the Age (Drury Lane, 1701). A masque was written for William Burnaby, Love Betray’d (Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 1703), but not set to music by the management.

⁸⁵ Further, see McGeary, Opera and Politics in Queen Anne’s Britain, pp. 49–52.

⁸⁶ Ibid., pp. 51–52.

⁸⁷ Dryden, John, Albion and Albanius: an Opera (London: Jacob Tonson, 1685), [i].Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Ibid., [iii].

⁸⁹ The pastoral tradition, which lies behind the origins and subjects of many early operas, is well summarized in Kimbell, David, Italian Opera (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 47–52 Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ Kimbell, Italian Opera, p. xiii.

⁹¹ This narrative of the early years of the fate of opera sung in English is given by Price, ‘Critical Decade for English Music Drama, 1700–1710’, and Price, Music in the Restoration Theatre. See also the season summaries in Milhous and Hume, Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Theatrical Papers 1706–1715.

⁹² Spectator, no. 18 (21 March 1711).