The lesser-known gems of ‘Musick’ in Manchester July 23rd 1744/45

© Dr. Pauline Nobes

Tonight’s concert is another reconstruction of the sixteen original concert programmes, a research and performance project led by our Artistic Director and leader, Prof. Dr. Pauline Nobes.

The ‘Musick’ in Manchester programmes all show a large and varied selection of music. Their historical programming concept encourages the re-introduction of certain neglected and little-known music into today’s concert repertory in combination with the ever-present music of Corelli and Handel clearly as popular then as it is today. The exchange between solos, trios, duets and larger-scale works, vocal as well as instrumental music, is relatively unknown to concertgoers today and it provides an exciting, special and historical way to present ‘early music’.

With a lot of behind-the-scenes detective work the carefully transcribed lists of ‘Musick’ can be transformed into not only historically credible but also attractive and entertaining concert programmes.

In John Harland’s centenary review of the 1744/45 concerts, the fickleness of contemporary taste and favour is highlighted:

“If we take away the illustrious Germans, Handel and Hasse, and the Italian Corelli, what is known of the rest? Of Geminiani we have a sort of dim remembrance, partly from finding him named in old novels and tales of the period’ but who were Tessarini, Vivaldi, Lusinga, or Alberti? Who our own countrymen, Felton and Humphreys?”

Tonight’s concert programme dated July 23rd 1745 features not only music by the “illustrious Germans, Handel and Hasse”, “the Italian Corelli”, a “dim rememberance” of Geminiani but also “our own Countrymen” John Humphreys and William Felton.

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)

First Overture to Admetus

The concert programme opens in familiar manner with a keyboard version of a Handel Overture. Ademeto is thought to be a contemporary, rather than Handel’s own arrangement for solo harpsichord.

Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762)

fifth of Geminiani                           

There are several collections of Geminiani’s music published before the ‘Musick’ in Manchester concerts. The ownership reference to ‘Geminiani’s Concertos…belonging to ye Concert’ noted at the beginning of the eighteenth-century record book and transcribed in accurate detail by John Harland, still leaves identification open to interpretation. The ‘first’ through to the ‘sixth concerto of Geminiani’ are listed in six successive concerts between December 1744 and April 1745, and the six are thought to be from one and the same collection of six Concerti Grossi owned by the Music Society. For the programme reconstructions, Op. 2 or Op.3 are thought to be the most likely candidates. Although for tonight’s concert, there is another option, namely Op. 5 Geminiani’s re-working of Corelli’s XII Sonata’s or Solo’s for a Violin a Bass Violin or Harpsichord ... his fifth Opera.... This collection may have been the further acquisition of ‘ye Concert’ refered to by a costing for ‘Geminiani’s Concertos’ noted at the end of the second quarter of the concert series. This would explain the more detailed reference ‘fourth of Geminiani (opera fifth)’ specified in the June 25th, 1745 programme.

For the concert tonight our choice is to perform the early version of Geminiani’s fifth concerto, Op. 3 (Walsh,1732). It is possible that this collection was published without the composer’s approval. Even though Geminiani was known to enjoy making substantial revisions to his work, the composer famously took legal action against the London publisher John Walsh. The dispute was concerning the unauthorized and uncorrected publication of his Op.2 concertos.  He left for Paris to find a more sympathetic engraver at the time the first version of the Op. 3 concertos was released.  Geminiani heavily revised the Op.3 concertos several years later.

Original part books of the early version of Op. 3 are held in The Henry Watson Music Library.

Johann Christian Schickhardt (ca. 1682–1762)

German flute solo

The ‘German flute’ (now known as the transverse or Baroque flute) is a terminology which excludes the recorder or ‘small flute’. The German flute was very popular in England at this time and it is featured throughout the ‘Musick’ in Manchester concert series. In the sixteen programmes one concert seems to be without flute.

Although the repertory is always left relatively open (‘German flute concerto’ (9), ‘German

flute solo’ (5), ‘Solo on German flute’ (1) and ‘Solo, German flute’ (4)) the differentiation

between ‘solo’ and ‘concerto’ is acknowledged in the reconstructions. ‘Solos’ are interpreted

as Sonatas rather than concertos. The choice of music for the sonatas is inspired by a microfilm containing eighteenth-century London editions ordered many years ago by Dr. David Ledbetter for the Royal Northern College of Music library. Sonatas by Sigr. Giovanni Boni, Mr. Christian

Schickhardt and Sig. Quants (sic) all have the title ‘Solos for a German flute, Hoboy or

violin…’. The inclusion of oboe and violin in the title was almost certainly a marketing ploy

of the London publisher, John Walsh.

The German composer Johann Christian Schikhardt was a virtuoso flautist and oboist. Schickhardt is reported to have lived in London for a short while, and his contact to London publisher John Walsh succesfully led to the publication of his flute sonatas Op. 19 and 20.

Subsequently, it seems the composer’s works may have been published as ‘pirated’ copies from Amsterdam editions. These include one of his inspiring theoretical works, the L'Alphabeth de la Musique which contains 24 sonatas in all 24 major and minor keys. Schickhardt’s Compleat Tutor for oboe is also one of very few surviving oboe tutors from the Baroque period.

William Felton (1713–1769)

MS concerto of Felton

The English composer, Rev. William Felton, is reported to have attended Manchester’s Grammar school before studying at Cambridge. He received his M.A. in the same year his music was listed in two ‘Musick’ in Manchester programmes - May 14th 1745 ‘first organ Concerto of Felton’, July 23rd 1745 ‘MS concerto of Felton’.

Felton was not only a ‘parson’ but also a composer and organist/harpsichordist. His music was well published and popular throughout eighteenth-century England. A later reprint of his Op. 1 is held at the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester and contains a list-up of more than 100 subscribers. The names included are impressive, including six composers still well-known today - Mr. Avison, Mr William Boyce, George Frederick Handel, Mr Nichola Matteis, Master of Musick, Dr Pepusch and Mr John Stanley as well as several notable names from Manchester’s eighteenth-century high society, known supporters of the Jacobite cause and subscribers to the Manchester 1744/45 concerts - ‘The Rev. Mr. Clayton’, ‘Mr. Thomas Theodorus Deacon’, ‘Mr Thomas Dickanson, in Manchester’.

The concerto chosen for tonight’s reconstruction programme is the third from Felton’s collection of harpsichord concertos, Op 1 published in 1744. It contains ‘Felton’s Air’ or ‘Felton’s Gavot, a piece reported to have been played as the Jacobite ‘rebels’ retreated from Manchester in 1745. The Gavotte in question is the theme for the set of variations to be heard in the final movement of this concerto.

Johann Adolf Hasse (1699 –1783)

German flute concerto

Johann Adolf Hasse’s music is chosen to complete the cryptic description, ‘German flute concerto’.  Hasse’s popularity in eighteenth-century England is unquestionable and one of his “Grand Concertos” is named in the ‘Musick’ in Manchester concert series: these Concerti Grossi (Op. 4) are reworkings of some of his opera overtures. Hasse composed 63 operas, for which he is best known today. The flute concerto, chosen tonight from his Op. 3, the concerto in B minor is equally dramatic and thought likely to have been within the repertory of the society’s flautist, identified as Mr. Richardson.

Thomas Roseingrave (ca. 1690–1776)

Harpsichord lesson

In the ‘Musick’ in Manchester programmes the use of ‘lesson’ is always linked with the harpsichord (although in general it can refer to other instruments). It is a common all-purpose eighteenth-century title, by no means necessarily implying a small-scale or instructive work. It is often a collective term referring to Suites, or Sonatas da camera and da chiesa such as, for example, the harpsichord Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti published in London in 1739. Also confusing is that the title can be used for individual movements, or even arrangements of ‘songs’. The choice for ‘harpsichord lesson’ for tonight’s concert is a suite of four dance-movements by Thomas Roseingrave form his Eight Lessons for the Harpsichord (1728). His works are heralded as quintessentially English in style, and although he was criticised at the time for his "harsh, ungrateful harmony, and extravagant and licentious modulations" his improvisation skills are favorably reported. Roseingrave received financial assistance to travel to Italy in order to improve his musical skills. He was an avid admirer of Domenico Scarlatti and the influence of the ‘easier’ continental style of mainstream Baroque composers can be heard, for example in his works for harpsichord.

Michele Mascitti (c.1664 – c.1760)

violin solo

Although un-named in the ‘Musick’ in Manchester programmes, the violin solos of Michele Mascitti were well-known in eighteenth-century England and thus serve well as ‘fillers’ for the works with the minimalistic description ‘violin solo’.

Mascitti travelled from his Italian home through Germany and Netherlands to finally settle in Paris where he was highly esteemed. His 116 works, exclusively for strings, include predominantly violin solos but also 12 trio sonatas and 4 concertos. In addition to the Parisian printed editions of Mascitti’s music, there are numerous later reprints, and his Op. 3 violin sonatas (1707) were published in England almost quarter of a century later. In addition, and by happy coincidence, several of these Op. 3 sonatas including tonight’s sonata, were found in the same manuscript as a keyboard arrangement of the only ‘named’ Cantata, ‘On the Coast of Argos’ in the ‘Musick’ in Manchester concert programmes (now known to be composed by another of our country men George Hayden and held at the Henry Watson Music Library in Manchester’s Central library).

John Humphries (ca. 1707 – ca. 1733)

concerto of Humphreys

There are two different spellings for the English composer John Humphries. In all five occurrences in the Musick in Manchester transcript of records it is written as Mr. Humphreys. The musical output of the composer is consistent regardless of the spelling or the occasional use of initials J. S. and is considered nowadays to be one and the same composer (in contradiction to the opinions of eighteenth-century historian, John Hawkins (General History of Music, 1776)).

John Humphreys was a violinist composer whose sonatas for ‘Solo violin and Base’ are Italian in style with fugal passages reminiscent of the virtuosic writing in Corelli’s Op. 5. Humphreys also published 12 trio sonatas and two collections of Concerti Grossi. His Op. 3 collection of twelve Concerti Grossi was printed and sold by Benjamine Cooke [1741] in London and as such, a likely contender for the last piece in the reconstruction of the ‘Musick’ in Manchester programme, July 23rd 1745.