Matthew Locke: A Dynamic Figure in English Music

Extract

The seventeenth century is conspicuous in musical history for the picturesque and unorthodox personalities that flourished during its span. None of them was more vigorous, colourful or intrepid than that robust and adventurous character, Matthew Locke. Born about 1630, and therefore the older contemporary of Buxtehude and Lully, Locke grew up in an age that was largely occupied in trying to absorb the new doctrines expounded or implied by the Florentine revolutionaries at the beginning of the century. The pupil of Christopher Gibbons, his musical lineage thus sprang in direct succession from the great Elizabethan polyphonic school, and the conflict between that tradition and the new methods infiltrating from the continent was the perpetual undercurrent of his development. The earlier generation of composers, which included such men as William Child and Christopher Gibbons himself, had been inclined to evade the issue, and let it be understood that it was too late for them to undertake so fundamental a reorientation. But it was impossible to ignore any longer the changing aspect of European music; the new influences abroad had to be incorporated into the national idiom, however drastic the process involved. Locke was not one to decline such a difficult and, in many ways, thankless task; on the contrary the challenge afforded him a certain stimulus. It demanded a man of dauntless fibre, and Locke was tough, both personally and musically. He had need to be, for as if his artistic problems were not sufficient, they were set against a background of social upheaval. His youth was spent under the early Stuarts, the Commonwealth witnessed his progress to maturity, and the climax of his career was reached during the Restoration. He is thus of unusual interest historically, since his life not only spans the artistic gap between the last survivals of the Elizabethan period and the widespread adoption of the Italian manner, but also links two political eras separated by a succession of events that profoundly changed the whole constitutional scene.