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Tradition and Experiment in the Devotional Music of George Jeffreys

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1972

Peter Aston
Peter Aston*
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
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Extract

The year 1646 was an important one in the musical career of George Jeffreys. Since at least 1643, and probably from October of the previous year, Jeffreys had been organist to Charles I at Oxford, an appointment which may have been secured for him by his patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, who was shortly to become Controller of the King's Household. Jeffreys' long association with the Hatton family dates back to at least 1631. In that year he set some verses by Sir Richard Hatton and collaborated with Peter Hausted in the comedy The Rivall Friends which was produced before the king and queen at Cambridge on 19 March. But Jeffreys' life at court and his association with the leading poets and musicians of the day were to come to an abrupt end on 24 June 1646. With the final surrender of Oxford to the Parliamentarian forces, led by Fairfax, Jeffreys retreated to the small Northamptonshire village of Weldon, where nine years earlier he had married the daughter of Thomas Mainwaring, rector of Weldon from 1614 until 1663. On leaving Oxford, Jeffreys retired for ever from the life of a professional musician. Almost immediately he became steward to Sir Christopher Hatton, and from about 1646 until his death in 1685 he was responsible for the administration of the Hatton estate at Kirby in Northamptonshire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 99 , 1972 , pp. 105 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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Footnotes

The performances were recorded at public concerts given during 1969 at York University and at the Harrogate Festival.

References

1 Sir John Hawkins, A Gentral History of the Science and Practice of Music, London, 1776 (reprinted, New York, 1963), 11.582, also ii. 584 and ii. 679; further see The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Oxford, 1772, i. 274.Google Scholar

2 ‘Songs made for some Comedyes by Sir Richard Hatton’, British Museum, Add. MS 10338.Google Scholar

3 The marriage licence, dated 21 December 1637, names his bride as ‘Mary Peirs, a widow, of Weldon’. That she was the daughter of Thomas Mainwaring is shown conclusively by Mainwaring's will, dated 10 March 1662.Google Scholar

4 See Jeffreys' letters to Christopher Hatton and others, written between 1648 and 1685 (British Museum, Add. MSS 29550–61).Google Scholar

5 Music and the Reformation in England, London, 1967, p. 351.Google Scholar

6 British Museum, Add. MS 53723, ff. 43v-44.Google Scholar

7 W. W. Greg; A List of English Plays Written before 1643 and Printed before 1700, London, 1900.Google Scholar

8 For a more detailed discussion of the manuscript sources, see Aston, Peter, ‘George Jeffreys’, The Musical Times, cx (1969), 772–6.Google Scholar

9 British Museum, Add. MS 29282; Add. MSS 30829, 30830, 17816; Royal College of Music, MS 920; MS 920A.Google Scholar

10 Gunning was rector of the nearby parish of Stoke until his death in 1669.Google Scholar

11 British Museum, Add. MS 10338, ff. 60–62; also Royal College of Music, MS 920.Google Scholar

12 An eighteenth-century manuscript in the Royal College of Music (RCM 660) attributes to Jeffreys nine two-part devotional songs which are in fact by Dering. Five more songs attributed to Jeffreys in this manuscript do not appear in any of the autograph sources, and it seems likely that they too are by Dering.Google Scholar

13 British Museum, Add. MS 10338, ff. 73v–75; also Royal College of Music, MS 920.Google Scholar

14 Some insight into Jeffreys' attitude towards religion, and his dislike of the Presbyterians, can be gained from his letters to Christopher Hatton dated 9 March 1667 (British Museum, Add. MS 29551, f. 393), 27 April 1671 (Add. MS 29553, f. 180) and 11 December 1679 (Add. MS 29557, f. 309).Google Scholar

15 Ed. Peter Aston, London, 1969 (Novello, NECM 5).Google Scholar

16 British Museum, Add. MS 10338, f. 160v; the anthem is also found in Add. MSS 30829, 30830, 17816, and in Royal College of Music, MS 920A.Google Scholar

17 British Museum, Add. MS 10338, f. 270v; also Add. MSS 30829, 30830, 17816.Google Scholar

18 One of the anthems, ‘Almighty God, who mad'st thy blessed Son’, does not appear in Add. MS 10338, but is found only in the incomplete set of part-books, Add. MSS 30829, 30830, 17816, which are wanting the two highest voice parts and continuo. Presumably it was the last to be written, and was not included in the score-book for lack of space. The anthem must therefore date from after the early summer of 1669. The first six anthems appear together towards the end of Add. MS 10338. They are followed by a five-part setting of Psalm 20, thus interrupting the sequence before the appearance of the Whitsunday anthem which is the last in the book.Google Scholar

19 ‘Whisper it easily’, ‘Ryse, hart thy Lord is rysen’, ‘Looke upp, all eyes’ and ‘A musick strange’.Google Scholar

20 ‘Easter’, published in The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (1633).Google Scholar