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Reforming Handel: John Brown and The Cure of Saul (1763)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2011

Ilias Chrissochoidis
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Abstract

This article explores the first attempt to reform Handelian oratorio, by the Revd John Brown, in 1763. Concerned about the waning popularity and literary flaws of Handel's works, Brown launched a reform campaign through his own oratorio The Cure of Saul, performed at Covent Garden Theatre, and the publication of A Dissertation on […] Poetry and Music. He also produced the first monograph of oratorio criticism, An Examination of the Oratorios which have been performed this Season, at Covent-Garden Theatre (1763). Published within weeks of one another, the three works shaped an intellectual offensive with aesthetic and moral goals mounted on an educational platform. Although a failure, Brown's attempt reflected Britain's national anxiety in the wake of the Seven Years War.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 136 , Issue 2 , 2011 , pp. 207 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Musical Association

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Footnotes

John Brown's ill-fated reform of Handelian oratorio was the first breakthrough in my study of Handel's early reception, and helped establish the wide interdisciplinary perspective I have applied to the subject in the past decade. Earlier versions of this article were read at the Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (Columbus, OH, 2002), the American Handel Festival at the University of Iowa (2003) and the Eleventh Quadrennial Congress of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (UCLA, 2003). The encouragement and support of Karol Berger, Ellen T. Harris and Tom Grey have been critical in developing this project towards publication. I owe special thanks to the Revd Geoffrey Ravalde for permission to reproduce Brown's self-portrait and to David Lomas for the tricky task of capturing it in photo.

References

1 William Hughes, Remarks Upon Church Musick. To which are added Several Observations Upon Some of Mr. Handel's Oratorio's, And other Parts of his Works (Worcester, 1758; 2nd edn, 1763), 46. All italics in quoted material are original.

2 In the previous year, the Shakespearean passage had been applied to Bishop William Warburton (1698–1779), widely considered the leading theologian and literary figure in Britain ([John Brown], An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (London, 1757), 44).

3 See Ellen T. Harris, ‘Handel's Ghost: The Composer's Posthumous Reputation in the Eighteenth Century’, Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought, ed. John Paynter, Tim Howell, Richard Orton and Peter Seymour, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1992), i, 208–25.

4 Ian Bartlett and Robert J. Bruce, ‘William Boyce's “Solomon”’, Music and Letters, 61 (1980), 28–49 (pp. 48–9).

5 Letter to Charles Burney, 21 April 1784 (London, Foundling Museum, Gerald Coke Handel Collection, accession no. 3198, fol. 1r; The Letters of Dr Charles Burney, i: 1751–1784, ed. Alvaro Ribeiro, SJ (Oxford, 1991), 417, n. 6).

6 See Donald D. Eddy, A Bibliography of John Brown (New York, 1971).

7 John Brown, A Dissertation on the Rise, Union, and Power, The Progressions, Separations, and Corruptions, of Poetry and Music. To which is prefixed, The Cure of Saul. A Sacred Ode (London, 1763).

8 See Warren Dwight Allen, Philosophies of Music History: A Study of General Histories of Music, 1600–1900 (New York, 1939; repr. 1962), 82–3, 147–8; Robert Manson Myers, Handel's Messiah: A Touchstone of Taste (New York, 1948), 172–3; Paul Henry Lang, George Frideric Handel (New York, 1966), 375; Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Peter le Huray and James Day (Cambridge, 1981), 82; John Neubauer, The Emancipation of Music from Language: Departure from Mimesis in Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics (New Haven, CT, and London, 1986), 133; Thomas McGeary, ‘Music Literature’, Music in Britain: The Eighteenth Century, ed. H. Diack Johnstone and Roger Fiske (Oxford, 1990), 397–421 (p. 416); and Music and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe: A Source Book, ed. Enrico Fubini, trans. Wolfgang Freis, Lisa Gasbarrone and Michael Louis Leone, trans. ed. Bonnie J. Blackburn (Chicago, IL, and London, 1994), 161–73. An Italian translation of the work appears in La musica degli antichi e la musica dei moderni: Storia della musica e del gusto nei trattati di Martini, Eximeno, Brown, Manfredini, ed. Michela Garda, Alberto Jona and Maria Titli (Milan, 1989), 423–577. The only philological study of the work of which I am aware appeared in Germany early in the twentieth century: Hermann M. Flasdieck, ‘John Brown (1715–1766) und seine Dissertation on Poetry and Music’, Studien zur Englischen Philologie, 68 (1924), 1–142.

9 Howard E. Smither, A History of the Oratorio, 4 vols. (Chapel Hill, NC, and London, 1977–2000), iii: The Oratorio in the Classical Era (1987), 240–1; Eva Zöllner, English Oratorio after Handel: The London Oratorio Series and its Repertory, 1760–1800 (Marburg, 2002).

10 The main biographical sources on Brown are: Biographia Britannica: Or, The Lives of the Most Eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain and Ireland, from the Earliest Ages, to the Present Times […] Volume the Second, ed. Andrew Kippis (London, 1780), 653–74; Thomas Hollis, ‘Character of the late Dr. Brown, Vicar of Newcastle’, [Francis Blackburne], Appendix to the Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, Esq. (London, 1780), ii, 714–17; and [Leslie Stephen], ‘Brown, John’, Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Stephen (London and New York, 1886), vii, 10–12. The most complete account of his life and work is William Roberts, A Dawn of Imaginative Feeling: The Contribution of John Brown (1715–66) to Eighteenth Century Thought and Literature (Carlisle, 1996), 3–83.

11 John Brown, An Essay on Satire: Occasion'd by the Death of Mr. Pope (London, 1745). For advertisements in the press, see the Daily Gazetteer, 24 April 1745, [2], and Old England: Or, The Constitutional Journal, 27 April 1745, [3].

12 ‘I own I was much surprized at ye. Performance […] For I think it a masterpiece’ (William Warburton to John Brown, 24 December 1746, in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. misc. C.390, fol. 398).

13 Works of Alexander Pope, ed. William Warburton (London, 1751).

14 John Brown, Essays on the Characteristics (London, 1751).

15 John Brown, On the Pursuit of False Pleasure (Bath, 1750).

16 John Brown, On Liberty: A Poem, Inscribed to his Grace the Chancellor and to the University of Cambridge, on Occasion of the Peace (London, 1749).

17 John Brown, Barbarossa: A Tragedy (London, 1755); idem, Athelstan: A Tragedy (London, 1756). The manuscripts were submitted to the Lord Chamberlain's Office on 3 December 1754 and 18 February 1756 respectively (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, LA 115 and LA 124, [1]).

18 Ian McIntyre, Garrick (London, 1999), 226. After only three performances in early 1755, Brown received from Garrick £304 in author's fees (receipt dated 20 February 1755, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Art Library, 213 48.F.12 (no. 1)).

19 Bob Harris, Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2002), 87.

20 See The Real Character of the Age. In a Letter to the Rev. Dr. Brown. Occasioned by his Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (London, 1757); The Prosperity of Britain, proved from the Degeneracy of its People. A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Brown, on his Estimate of Manners. With Some Thoughts on his Answerer in the Real Character (London, 1757).

21 [John Brown], An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, Vol. II (London, 1758). See also Some Doubts Occasioned by the Second Volume of an Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times. Humbly proposed to the Author or to the Public (London, 1758).

22 See Roberts, A Dawn of Imaginative Feeling, 13.

23 See Charles Avison's Essay on Musical Expression. With Related Writings by William Hayes and Charles Avison, ed. Pierre Dubois (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2004), 17–18, 60–1 (n. 23), 150, 156.

24 [Brown], An Estimate (1757), 46.

25 John Brown to David Garrick, 9 October 1761 (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick with the Most Celebrated Persons of his Time, ed. James Boaden, 2 vols. (London, 1831–2), i, 132).

26 For a calendar list of the performances, see Zöllner, English Oratorio after Handel, 206.

27 See Ilias Chrissochoidis, ‘Handel at a Crossroads: His 1737–1738 and 1738–1739 Seasons Re-Examined’, Music and Letters, 90 (2009), 599–635 (pp. 610–19).

28 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 178, where the letter is erroneously dated [1765]).

29 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 179, where the letter is erroneously dated [1765]).

30 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 178–9).

31 William Roberts's biographical account is inconsistent in its identification of the venue in which Smith worked: ‘At this time he was at odds with Smith, the manager of Drury Lane, who he hoped would take on his oratorio, The Cure of Saul, and complained to Garrick that he was “improperly treated from that quarter”’ (Roberts, A Dawn of Imaginative Feeling, 55). In the next page, however, Roberts mentions that ‘Brown claimed […] that the manager of the Covent Garden Theatre had admitted that the piece was “as good as any that has ever appeared”’. The confusion probably is due to the existence of a Mr Smith, box and box-office keeper at Drury Lane Theatre (Index to The London Stage, 1660–1800, compiled by Ben Ross Schneider, Jr (Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL, 1979), 793).

32 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 179).

33 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 179).

34 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 179).

35 See [William Coxe], Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel and John Christopher Smith (London, 1799; repr. New York, 1979), 52.

36 For the close relationship of young George and Lord Bute, see James Lee McKelvey, George III and Lord Bute: The Leicester House Years (Durham, NC, 1973).

37 For his services to Lord Bute in superintending the construction of a barrel organ, ‘Smith declined all pecuniary gratification; and hinted, that he should think his pains more than amply repaid, if, through his Lordship's recommendation, the King would condescend to patronize the Oratorios. Lord Bute accordingly represented Mr. Smith in so favourable a light, that the King honoured the Oratorios with his presence […] which was a great support, and brought much company to the house’ ([Coxe], Anecdotes, 53).

38 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 179–80).

39 John Brown to David Garrick, 26 November 1762 (ibid., 153).

40 John Brown to David Garrick, 26 November 1762 (ibid., 153).

41 John Brown to David Garrick, 26 November 1762 (ibid., 153).

42 John Brown to David Garrick, 26 November 1762 (ibid., 153).

43 Boswell's London Journal 1762–1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (New York, London and Toronto, 1950), 162–3.

44 Public Advertiser, 25 February 1763, [4].

45 Boswell's London Journal, ed. Pottle, 204.

46 St James's Chronicle, 1–3 March 1763, [3]; Lloyd's Evening Post, 2–4 March 1763, 214.

47 London Evening-Post, 3–5 March 1763, [4]; The London Chronicle for 1763, 1–3 March, 213–14.

48 St James's Chronicle, 8–10 March 1763, [4].

49 Public Advertiser, 3 March 1763, [1].

50 John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, 5 vols. (London, 1776), i, p. xxvii (footnote).

51 St James's Chronicle, 3–5 March 1763, [3].

52 Ibid., [2], and 5–8 March 1763, [3].

53 St James's Chronicle, 3–5 March 1763, 8–10 March 1763, [4].

54 ‘John Brown’, Biographia Britannica, ed. Kippis, ii, 660.

55 Brown, A Dissertation, 5.

56 Brown, A Dissertation, 218–19.

57 The London Chronicle for 1763, 5–8 March, 227.

58 John Brown, Sermons on Various Subjects (London, 1764).

59 St James's Chronicle, 15–17 March 1763, [4].

60 St James's Chronicle, 8–10 March 1763, [4].

61 St James's Chronicle, 15–17 March 1763, [3].

62 St James's Chronicle, 15–17 March 1763, [2].

63 Brown, A Dissertation, 215–21.

64 63Brown, A Dissertation, [ii].

65 Roberts, A Dawn of Imaginative Feeling, 56; Smither, A History of the Oratorio, iii, 240.

66 John Brown to David Garrick, 9 October 1761 (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 132).

67 London, British Library, T.933.(13.); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce HH. 35; Cambridge, University Library, MR800.c.75.1; Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Library, ML3206.M17. In his 1971 bibliography of Brown, Eddy lists two copies, at the British Library and Boston Public Library (A Bibliography of John Brown, 166). The English Short Title Catalogue has no record of the latter, but adds the copies at Oxford, Cambridge and Cornell. Given Eddy's affiliation with the latter university, it is reasonable to assume that he might have arranged the purchase of the Boston copy by Cornell.

68 [?John Brown], An Examination of the Oratorios which have been performed this Season, at Covent-Garden Theatre (London, 1763), 3–4. Quoted in Winton Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London, 1959), 142–3; Smither, A History of the Oratorio, iii, 199; William Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology (Oxford, 1992), 122. Only Myers quotes extensively from the rest of the pamphlet, concerning Messiah: Myers, Handel's Messiah, 172–3.

69 [?Brown], An Examination, 4.

70 According to Eddy (A Bibliography of John Brown, 166), Maddison's name is inscribed in the Boston Public Library copy. However, the copy at Cornell University, which I suspect is identical with the latter, ‘bears no handwritten inscription of any nature anywhere in the volume’ (electronic communication from Patrick J. Stevens, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University, 12 March 2003).

71 Myers, Handel's Messiah, 173.

72 Roberts, A Dawn of Imaginative Feeling, 82.

73 Smither, A History of the Oratorio, iii, 199; McGeary, ‘Music Literature’, 402; Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics, 122. Lowell Lindgren's treatment of the authorship illustrates this ambivalence: he uses ‘Robert Maddison’ in the main text and the same within brackets in the bibliographical citation (‘Oratorios Sung in Italian at London, 1734–82’, L'oratorio musicale italiano e i suoi contesti (secc. XVII–XVIII), ed. Paola Besutti (Florence, 2002), 513–59 (pp. 515 and 516, n. 10)).

74 Smither, A History of the Oratorio, iii, 199.

75 Myers, Handel's Messiah, 173.

76 Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques, 142, n. 2.

77 [?Brown], An Examination, 10–11.

78 Peter D. G. Thomas, John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty (Oxford, 1996), 29.

79 [John Brown], An Explanatory Defence of the Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times. Being An Appendix to that Work, occasioned by the Clamours lately raised against it among certain Ranks of Men (London, 1758).

80 Roberts, A Dawn of Imaginative Feeling, 43.

81 Some Observations on Dr. Brown's Dissertation On the Rise, Union, &c. &c. &c. of Poetry and Musick. In a Letter to Dr. B***** (London, 1764).

82 [John Brown], Remarks on Some Observations on Dr. Brown's Dissertation on Poetry and Musick. In a Letter to the Author of the Observations (London, 1764).

83 John Brown, The History of the Rise and Progress of Poetry (Newcastle, 1764).

84 [?Brown], An Examination, 51.

85 Critical Review, 15 (January–June 1763), 325.

86 Critical Review, 15 (January–June 1763), 325–6.

87 Critical Review, 15 (January–June 1763), 326.

88 Critical Review, 15 (January–June 1763), 326.

89 Critical Review, 15 (January–June 1763), 326.

90 Robert D. Spector, ‘Critical Review, The’, British Literary Magazines: The Augustan Age and the Age of Johnson, 1698–1788, ed. Alvin Sullivan (Westport, CT, 1983), 73–4.

91 Smither, A History of the Oratorio, iii, 199.

92 Public Advertiser, 26 April 1763, [3].

93 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 179).

94 Public Advertiser, 26 April 1763, [3].

95 Public Advertiser, 26 April 1763, [3].

96 Public Advertiser, 26 April 1763, [3]. [1].

97 John Brown to David Garrick, [1762] (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 179).

98 Simon McVeigh, The Violinist in London's Concert Life, 1750–1784: Felice Giardini and his Contemporaries (New York and London, 1989), 162–3.

99 Boswell's London Journal, ed. Pottle, 248–9.

100 [Edward Burnaby Greene], The Tower: A Poetical Epistle, Inscribed to John Wilkes, Esq. (London, 1763), 12.

101 [Edward Burnaby Greene], Friendship: A Satire (London, 1763).

102 [Edward Burnaby Greene], Friendship: A Satire (London, 1763)., 4.

103 ‘I must here declare, that for these and many other advantages which my journey produced, I am principally indebted to the patronage of the Earl of Sandwich’ (Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces, 2 vols. (London, 1775), i, p. vii).

104 [Edward Burnaby Greene], The Chaplain. A Poem (London, 1764), 5.

105 [Edward Burnaby Greene], The Satires of Juvenal Paraphrastically Imitated, and adapted to the Times (London, 1763).

106 ‘It is said the Rev. Dr. Brown has lately had the honour of an invitation to Petersburgh, from the empress of Russia; and that her imperial majesty has desired to confer with him there on some points of the highest importance, relative to the general civilization of the Russian empire.’ Annual Register 1766 (April issue), 92. Brown himself offered some details to Garrick in a letter dated 26 December (the year 1762 is obviously an error) (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Art Library, 213 48.F12 (no. 6)).

107 See Biographia Britannica, ed. Kippis, ii, 663–73; Hollis, ‘Character of the late Dr. Brown’, 716–17.

108 Whitehall Evening-Post; Or, London Intelligencer, 20–23 September 1766, [4].

109 Ibid., 23–25 September 1766, [3]. In a letter dated 5 October 1766, Thomas Gray reports two private accounts of Brown's suicide: ‘This morning [23 September] Dr B: dispatch'd himself: he had been for several days past very low-spirited, & within the last two or three talk'd of the necessity of dying in such a manner as to alarm the people about him: they removed as they thought every thing, that might serve his purpose. but he had contrived to get at a razor unknown to them, & took the advantage of a minute's absence of his servants to make use of it. […] I have tried to find out, whether there was any appearance or cause of discontent in B:, but can hear of none. a bodily complaint of the gouty kind, that fell upon his nerves & affected his spirits in a very great degree is all that I can get any information of; & I am told besides, that he was some years ago in the same dejected way, & under the care of proper attendants’ (punctuation original). According to another account reported in the same letter, Brown had been treated by Sir John Pringle, but ‘apprehended himself going mad, & two nights after cut his throat in bed’ (Correspondence of Thomas Gray, ed. Paget Toynbee and Leonard Whibley, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1935), iii, 938–9). References to his mental instability abound in contemporary sources. In a letter to William Gilpin dated 12 February 1741/2, Brown describes his own enthusiasm as ‘Symptoms of Madness’ (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. misc. C.389, fol. 60). Gilpin would later recount that ‘His distemper was a frenzy to which he had by fits been long subject; to my own knowledge, above thirty years’ (Biographia Britannica, ed. Kippis, ii, 673). The public accounts in his entry in Biographia Britannica (ii, 673) explicitly mention ‘the bias of his mind to insanity’. Personal attacks against Brown continued almost until the end of his life. A contemporary pamphlet calls him a national ‘exorcist […] whose powerful spells have heretofore so successfully banished [note: Essay on the Characteristics] reason from religion, [note: Dissertation on Poetry and Music] precision from criticism, and enthusiasm from [note: Cure of Saul] poetry’ (Political Logic Displayed: Or, a Key to the Thoughts on Civil Liberty, Licentiousness and Faction (London, 1765), 2).

110 John Brown to David Garrick, 9 October 1761 (The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. Boaden, i, 132).

111 Brown, A Dissertation, 198–9.

112 Brown, A Dissertation, 238.

113 Brown, A Dissertation, [ii].

114 Brown, A Dissertation, 217.

115 Brown, A Dissertation, 217.

116 Brown, A Dissertation, 218.

117 Brown, A Dissertation, 218.

118 Brown, A Dissertation, 219.

119 Brown, A Dissertation, 219.

120 Brown, A Dissertation, 220.

121 Brown, A Dissertation, 216, 232.

122 Ion Paul Eustace Zottos, ‘The Completest Concert or Augustan Critics of Opera: A Documentary and Critical Study in English Aesthetics’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1977), 95. The most famous objection to recitative was published in Joseph Addison's Spectator, 3 April 1711, [1–2].

123 [John Mainwaring], Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel (London, 1760; repr. New York, 1980), 129.

124 [?Brown], An Examination, 4.

125 [?Brown], An Examination, 5.

126 Brown, A Dissertation, 232.

127 126Brown, A Dissertation, 220.

128 Charles Burney lists The Cure of Saul as a Handelian pasticcio: A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, 4 vols. (London, 1776–89), iv, 666.

129 [?Brown], An Examination, 4.

130 Brown, A Dissertation, 18–19, 238–42; [?idem], An Examination, 63.

131 Plato, Republic, Book IV, 424c (The Republic of Plato, trans. H. Spens (London, 1906), 114).

132 [Alexander Pope], The New Dunciad: As it was Found In the Year 1741 (London, 1742), 6.

133 Brown, A Dissertation, 239–40.

134 Plato, Republic, Book IV, 424b (The Republic of Plato, trans. Spens, 113).

135 Brown, A Dissertation, 242.

136 Ibid., 236. The point is repeated in the anonymous review of the ode in the April issue of The Theatrical Review; Or, Annals of the Drama. Volume the First (London, 1763), 146–9 (p. 149).

137 Plato, Republic, Book X, 607 (The Republic of Plato, trans. Spens, 331).

138 Brown, A Dissertation, 237.

139 Roberts, A Dawn of Imaginative Feeling, 56.

140 Brown, A Dissertation, 242.

141 [Brown], An Estimate, 30.

142 Burney, A General History of Music, i, 20 and 67; ii, 53 and 78; Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, iii, 461. Burney (i, 109–12) also credits Brown with the letter on ancient music in Charles Avison's An Essay on Musical Expression (2nd edn, London, 1753).

143 Burney, A General History of Music, iv, 603–4.

144 See European Magazine, and London Review, 42 (July–December 1802), 341–5 (pp. 341–2).

145 Although beyond the aims of this article, there are geographical and personal links between the two reformers. Gluck's short career in London in the mid-1740s coincides with the beginning of Brown's own literary reputation. More crucial, Gaetano Guadagni, who created the title role in Orfeo ed Euridice in Vienna, had spent years in London singing in Handel's oratorios. In 1755, he sang the leading role in Garrick and Smith's The Fairies only weeks after the première of Brown's Barbarossa at the same theatre (14 December 1754).