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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
On 22 August 1808 William Crotch wrote at length to Joseph Moore to discuss a number of detailed matters concerning that year's Birmingham festival, due to begin on 5 October. Moore was the festival's principal organizer; Crotch was in the press advertisements described as its ‘conductor‘—by which was meant that he directed performances from the keyboard—but here will be referred to as its musical director, a term carrying no misleading implications of baton-wielding, and encompassing his part in the planning of the festival. Crotch's letter is the only surviving letter of substance from what was clearly an extended exchange of correspondence between him and Moore on festival matters, and is of twofold significance. First, together with information from other sources, it is a valuable source of information about the music that was performed at the festival. Second, as a unique example for the period of a letter from a festival's musical director to its organizer, it sheds light on some of the details of putting on a festival: such issues as the balance of power and division of responsibilities between musical director and organizer, the timetable of the planning of the festival, and a number of matters of performing practice.
1 Birmingham Archives, MS 1292/1. Crotch's letter forms part of the Moore Papers (Letters and Papers of Joseph Moore (1766–1851), engraver and die sinker, relating to the Birmingham Triennial Music Festivals, MS 1292). I am grateful to Birmingham Archives for making a copy of the letter available and for permitting it to be quoted here.Google Scholar
2 On the provincial festival, see Pritchard, Brian, ‘The Music Festival and the Choral Society in England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: A Social History’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Birmingham, 3 vols., 1968); ‘The Provincial Festivals of the Ashley Family’, Galpin Society Journal, 22 (1969), 58–77; Howard E. Smither, A History of the Oratorio, vol. 3: The Oratorio in the Classical Era (Chapel Hill and London, 1987), 214–22; William Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology (Oxford, 1992), 103–42. For the Birmingham Festival, see Bunce, JohnThackray, A History of the Birmingham General Hospital and the Music Festivals (Birmingham, [1858]); J. Sutcliffe Smith, The Story of Music in Birmingham (Birmingham, 1945), 27–37; Andrew Deakin, History of the Birmingham Festival Choral Society (Birmingham, 1897). See also John Money, Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760–1800 (Manchester, 1977), particularly 8–11.Google Scholar
3 For a discussion of this decline, particularly apparent in large industrial centres in the Midlands and the North of England, and largely caused by the unsettling effects of the French wars, see Pritchard, The Music Festival, i, 211–310; ‘The Provincial Festivals of the Ashley Family’, 66–7.Google Scholar
4 Pritchard, The Music Festival, 1, 229–34.Google Scholar
5 For Moore, see DNB and his obituary notice in Gentleman's Magazine, n.s. 35 (1851), 670–1. For his involvement with the Birmingham Festival, see also Pritchard, The Music Festival, 1, 231–4; Bunce, History, 77 and 91–4, and Smith, The Story of Music in Birmingham, 27–37.Google Scholar
6 Pritchard, The Music Festival, 1, 296, citing Deakin, History, 11.Google Scholar
7 Mendelssohn conducted St Paul at the 1837 festival, the first performance in England of the Lobgesang at the 1840 festival, and the première of Elijah at the 1846 festival. Correspondence between Moore and Mendelssohn is divided between Birmingham Archives (six letters from Mendelssohn to Moore, 1840–6) and Oxford, Bodleian Library (19 letters from Moore to Mendelssohn, 1837–1846; also photocopies of the letters from Mendelssohn to Moore).Google Scholar
8 Advertisements in Aris's Birmingham Gazette.Google Scholar
9 Catalani also appeared at the 1814 and 1823 festivals.Google Scholar
10 Crotch's papers, notebooks, and the texts of his lectures on music are at the Norfolk Record Office (henceforward NRO). See also A. H. Mann, Notes on the Life and Works of Dr. William Crotch, compiled in Preparation for his Biography (MS, 13 volumes, NRO, 11200–13, [c. 1920]); Jonathan Rennert, William Crotch (Lavenham, 1975); Cyril Ehrlich, The Music Profession in England since the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1985), 35–7. Crotch's lectures (NRO, MSS 11063–7, 11228–33) were subsequently published in revised and abbreviated form as Substance of Several Courses of Lectures on Music, read in the University of Oxford, and in the Metropolis (London, 1831); extracts in Peter le Huray and James Day (eds.), Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1981), 427–42.Google Scholar
11 Greatorex may have been involved with earlier Birmingham festivals: according to Bunce (History, 137), he had begun his ‘connection’ with the festival in 1793. The 1805 festival was the first in which press advertisements gave the name of the ‘conductor’.Google Scholar
12 The ‘Installation Music’ of 3–6 July 1810. Crotch's fee was made up of £500 outright plus 15% of the net receipts above the first £1, 000; the final payment of £542 came out of net receipts of £1, 288, and left £450 to the Holywell Music Room and a mere £292 to the Oxford Infirmary (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Oxford Concert Bills 1809–1818).Google Scholar
13 For listings of typical festival programmes, see the series of compilations from press advertisements by Douglas Reid and Brian Pritchard, with addenda and corrigenda by Betty Matthews, Gwilym Beechey, and Arthur D. Walker, in earlier volumes of RMARC: Douglas Reid and Brian Pritchard, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: 1. Salisbury and Winchester’, RMARC, 5 (1965), 51–79; Douglas Reid, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: 2. Cambridge and Oxford’ RMARC, 6 (1966), 3–22; Arthur D. Walker, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Addenda to 1. Salisbury and Winchester’ RMARC, 6 (1966), 23; Brian Pritchard, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: 3. Liverpool and Manchester’, RMARC, 7 (1969), 1–25; Gwilym Beechey, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Addenda to 2. Cambridge and Oxford’, RMARC, 7 (1969), 26–7; Brian Pritchard and Douglas Reid, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: 4. Birmingham, Derby, Newcastle upon Tyne and York’, RMARC, 8 (1970), 1–22; Betty Matthews, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: 1. Salisbury and Winchester: Addenda and Corrigenda’, RMARC, 8 (1970), 23–33; Arthur D. Walker, ‘Some Festival Programmes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Addenda [to Salisbury and Oxford]‘ RMARC, 11 (1973), 138. For advertisements for the 1808 Birmingham festival, see Aris's Birmingham Gazette, 22, 29 August; 5, 12, 19, 26 September; 3 October 1808.Google Scholar
14 Mozart's additional accompaniments to Messiah had first been heard in England at Covent Garden on 29 March 1805, and were introduced later that year at the Birmingham festival. For the reception of the Mozart version in London, see Myers, RobertManson, Handel's Messiah: A Touchstone of Taste (New York, 1948), 279–82.Google Scholar
15 The Creation was quickly taken up by provincial music festivals following its first English performances in London in March and April 1800. Crotch performed it in Oxford on 16 June 1801, and it was first performed (alongside Messiah) in Birmingham at the 1802 festival. For an account of the 1802 Birmingham performance, and a perceptive comparison of the two works, see Anna Seward to Thomas Park, 27 September 1802, in Letters of Anna Seward, written between the Years 1784 and 1807 (6 volumes, Edinburgh, 1811), 6, 41–9, quoted in Myers, Handel's Messiah, 223–4.Google Scholar
16 The engagement of as many as seven, eight, or nine soloists for the whole festival was usual practice, at Birmingham and elsewhere.Google Scholar
17 The wording of the advertisement is significant. This was the Birmingham Oratorio Choral Society's first appearance at the festival, and they clearly were regarded as the junior partners.Google Scholar
18 Barber Music Library, University of Birmingham (wordbook); NRO MS 11071 (Crotch's notebook: his jottings are on pp. 92–5). I am grateful to the the Barber Music Library and the NRO for supplying copies of these materials.Google Scholar
19 Crotch had been occupied with country house festivals. He had been at Clare Hall from 3 to 10 August, and then at Marlow from 11 to 18 August. He returned to London on 19 August. See NRO, Mann, Notes II, 158.Google Scholar
20 Crotch's marginal additions and amplifications have been incorporated into the text without comment. Paragraphs have been numbered for ease of reference.Google Scholar
21 Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, ‘The ways of Zion do mourn’.Google Scholar
22 This offer was taken up by Moore: Crotch's arrangement of ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ (Croydon, Royal School of Church Music), scored for two flutes, two oboes, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones, and strings, is dated 15 September 1808, when it was despatched with a short covering letter to Moore. Crotch's accompaniments are as plain as is suggested here, doing no more than double the voice parts.Google Scholar
23 The 100 Psalm as Performed at St. Paul's, harmonized by Dr. W. Hayes (London, Preston, [1790?]). William Hayes (bapt. 1708–1777) was Professor of Music at Oxford from 1741 until his death, when he was succeeded by his son Philip (1738–1797), Crotch's immediate predecessor.Google Scholar
24 ‘Where each performer plays a different tune’ (OED).Google Scholar
25 The Breitkopf und Härtel score (1803), which also incorporated some material by J. A. Hiller. See Der Messias, Neue Mozart Ausgabe, X/28 Abt. 1 Bd. 2, ed. Andreas Holschneider, (Kassel, 1962) (hereafter NMA Der Messias), Kritische Bericht, 34–6.Google Scholar
26 These are the movements in which timpani parts are provided by Handel; they are also scored by Mozart in ‘For unto us’, ‘Glory to God’, and ‘Why do the nations’.Google Scholar
27 Trombones had been used in the second Messiah performance at the 1784 Commemoration (see Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey … in Commemoration of Handel (London, 1785), 112, and the discussion in Donald Burrows, Handel: Messiah (Cambridge 1991), 50 and n.14) and at various large-scale performances thereafter. The trombone parts referred to here presumably derived from this tradition. Trombone parts are provided by Mozart only for the Grave section of the Overture and the two Grave sections of ‘Since by man came death’. However, the original performing material provides parts for trombones in the tutti sections of the choruses, where they doubled the lower three voice parts in accordance with the standard Viennese sacred music practice of the time. See NMA Der Messias, ix; Kritische Bericht, 24–25.Google Scholar
28 Mozart's trumpet parts at this point (‘Hallelujah’, bars 51–69) double Handel's original trumpet part at the octave wherever this is possible within the limitations of natural instruments; his horn parts follow the rhythmic pattern of the voice parts. If the trombones were indeed playing in octaves at this point, as Crotch suggests, they were departing from their usual practice and would most probably have been doubling the trumpet parts.Google Scholar
29 Probably Crotch's ‘Radcliffe Concert’ in Oxford on 27 June 1808. See Crotch, Memoirs (NRO, MS 11244), June 29 1808.Google Scholar
30 Flack, Dressier, and Zwingman were the trombonists advertised for the Birmingham performances (Aris's Birmingham Gazette advertisements). On the use of trombones in England at this time and the lack of native-born players, see Herbert, Trevor, ‘The Sackbut in the 17th and 18th Centuries’, Early Music, 18 (1990), 609–16.Google Scholar
31 For Crotch's views on tempos in Handel, see his epistolary article ‘Remarks on the terms at present used in regulating the time’ in The Monthly Magazine for January 1800, and his The Overture, Pastoral Symphony and Choruses in the sacred Oratorio of Messiah…. arranged for the organ or piano forte by Wm Crotch (London, Birchall, c. 1815), in both of which tempos in terms of the length of a pendulum are suggested. In his Monthly Magazine article Crotch expresses his conviction, based on performances of Handel he had heard at Westminster Abbey, of the music of other composers heard at the Concerts of Antient Music, and on the recollections of ‘many elderly gentlemen’ that ‘the time at the beginning of this [sc. the 18th] century was performed much slower than in modern music’. For the text of Crotch's letter and a discussion of his views, his links with performance traditions stretching back to Handel, and a discussion of his suggested tempos for Messiah, see Tobin, John, Handel's Messiah: a Critical Account of the Manuscript Sources and Printed Editions (London, 1969), 83–8, 260–4.Google Scholar
32 In fact, a duet for Adam and Eve with chorus accompaniment. Crotch has misquoted the words of the chorus, which are ‘For ever blessed be his pow'r / His name be ever magnified’.Google Scholar
33 One of the three organ concertos, in F, A, and B flat, published by Birchall, c.1805. Autographs at NRO, MSS 11250, 11274.Google Scholar
34 Iphigénie en Aulide (1774).Google Scholar
35 Henry IV, ou La Bataille d'Ivry (Versailles, 1774) by Martini il Tedesco (1741–1816)Google Scholar
36 From the Mass in D (1732).Google Scholar
37 From the Te Deum (1757).Google Scholar
38 From the 1770 edition, ‘revised and corrected’ by William Boyce, most of the music of which is not by Locke.Google Scholar
39 The probably spurious music for The Tempest published in 1786 by Harrison and Co. and shortly afterwards by Longman and Broderip and in Goodison's complete edition. See Laurie, Margaret, ‘Did Purcell set The Tempes?‘, PRMA, 90 (1963–4), 43–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 From the Requiem.Google Scholar
41 Il grande Cidde (1764) by Antonio Sacchini (1730–1786), later known in its revised version as Il Cid (King's Theatre, London, 1773).Google Scholar
42 Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey, Plate VIII, shows the disposition of the orchestra at the Westminster Abbey performances. Crotch did not attend the 1784 performances, but was present at a performance of Messiah in Westminster Abbey at the 1786 Handel festival.Google Scholar
43 George Pike England (?1765–1816).Google Scholar
44 The first full score, published by Randall and Abell in 1767.Google Scholar
45 Arnold's edition was published c. 1787.Google Scholar
46 See Simon McVeigh, ‘The Professional Concert and Rival Subscription Series in London, 1783–1793‘, RMARC, 22 (1989), 1–135; pp. 15–17.Google Scholar
47 See the programmes for the series of concerts given in 1810 by Mrs Billington, Braham, and Naldi (BL, pressmark C.61.g.18), which bear manuscript annotations in the hand of Sir George Smart (the musical director) detailing the responsibility for the parts for each item.Google Scholar
48 This advertisement was also the first to give details of ticket prices and where tickets were to be obtained.Google Scholar
49 See Substance of Several Courses of Lectures, 127, where Handel is hailed as ‘the greatest of all composers’.Google Scholar
50 Crotch would not have been alone in his objections to the Mozart accompaniments: see the review of the first London performance in the Sun, 30 March 1805, quoted in Myers, Handel's Messiah, 280. Myers also records (280–1) that the baritone James Bartleman refused to participate in performances using the Mozart accompaniments and that at a performance at Covent Garden on 30 January 1813 Sir George Smart omitted some of the additions as ‘not suitable to the accustomed English ear, and because Mozart would not allow (at the ends of his songs) the singers to make cadences, which many of them would not have agreed to’.Google Scholar
51 See Burrows, Handel's Messiah, 50: ‘[Mozart's] rewriting of Handel's trumpet parts was enforced by the change in players’ techniques; the trumpets in 1789 were middle-register fanfare instruments, and the employment of the higher clarino register was both unsafe and unfashionable.' In England the continuing popularity of Handel ensured that the clarino tradition had never died out.Google Scholar
52 For details of this festival, see my “The Tamworth Festival of 1809', Staffordshire Studies, 5 (1993), 81–106. The director was Samuel Wesley.Google Scholar
53 Wordbook and handbill at Tamworth Castle Museum, MS 1966.57; the wordbook describes The Creation as being ‘compressed into two parts’. I am grateful to Mr Richard Sulima, Assistant Curator at Tamworth Castle Museum, for making available a copy of the wordbook.Google Scholar
54 NRO, MS 11228, Lecture 12 (‘On Haydn‘). This text, dated 5 June 1809, was delivered as the concluding lecture in Crotch's 1809 series at the Hanover Square Rooms, and may be a revised version of the lecture he gave at the Royal Institution in 1805. See also Substance of Several Courses of Lectures, 141, where Crotch's criticisms of Haydn are considerably toned down. For the reaction of Charles Burney to Crotch's 1805 lecture, and for Crotch's reply, see Burney to Crotch, 17 February 1805, and Crotch to Burney, 4 March 1805, in Frank Mercer's edition of Burney's A General History of Music (London, 1935, repr. 1957), vol. 2, 1032–9. I am grateful to Rachel Cowgill for her assistance in clarifying the chronology of Crotch's lectures.Google Scholar
∗ A shorter version of this paper was read at the meeting of the RMA Northern Chapter in Edinburgh on 10 December 1994. I am indebted to Simon McVeigh, who read this paper in draft, for his comments. I am also grateful to him and to Peter Horton for their assistance in deciphering Crotch's notebook entries.Google Scholar