Dowland's Darkness

Author(s): Diana Poulton

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Early Music, Vol. 11, No. 4, Rameau Tercentenary Issue (Oct., 1983), pp. 517-519
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3137881 .
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iWW
Nationale, Vm72108,
C
3v; photo Alan Gerstman)
not
part of the title. The
appearance of the attribution
in a collection
emanating
in some
way
from Balbastre
is
strong support
for its
accuracy,
since Balbastre was a
warm admirer of Rameau and is
likely
to have known
whether or not the
piece
was the work of the
master;5
Marpurg's
evidence
reinforces
the link. And the
piece
itself
suggests
Rameau's
authorship,
for it consists
largely
of batteries that are
highly
characteristic of his
style (though they
were
widely copied).
The two
types
he claimed in 1724 to have invented are
neatly
differentiated at the
beginnings
and ends of strains: 'In
one of these
batteries, the hands make between them
the consecutive movement of two drumsticks: and in
the
other, the left hand
passes
over the
right
to
play
alternately
the bass and
treble.'6
One
might object
that the music is
unworthy
of
Rameau, but the same
objection applies to the
little
minuet in that same
preface of 1724; obviously both
are studies for
beginners. Certainly neither is less
worthy than the other
harpsichord piece by Rameau
known
only
in
manuscript, the second-rate, mechani-
cally spun-out La
dauphine. Until
proof to the
contrary
is
adduced,
it
seems
that we must
accept Les petits
marteaux as a minor addition to the Ramellian canon.
'F. W.
Marpurg, Historisch-hritische Beytrage
zur
Aufnahme der
Musih,
1 (Berlin, 1754), p.465
2Other copies may emerge during
the
preparation, by Bruce
Gustafson and the writer, of a
systematic catalogue
of the
repertory,
which is now in
progress.
3Recetiil
[sic]
de pieces de clavecin de
differents
auteurs Italienes et
francois
4It
should be noted that the mere
presence
or absence of an
attribution in this source tells us
nothing:
of 40
pieces
or
pairs of
pieces, about a third
carry a
composer's name;
only
three are
attributed to Balbastre, so the blanket ascription to him on the title-
page cannot be taken very seriously. (Nor can the description of the
pieces, for little more than half are airs
d'opera;
certainly
Les
petits
marteaux was
always keyboard music and never an
opera air.) The
individual attributions, however, all seem to be
plausible, though
no
verification has been
yet
undertaken.
5For
further information about the
relationship
between Balbastre
and Rameau see Laurence Libin's article in this issue,
pp.510-13.
6' De la
m6chanique
des
doigts',
Pieces de clavessin avec une methode
sur la
mechanique
des
doigts (Paris, 1724); true, here it is the
right hand
that
passes
over the left.
Dowland's darkness
Diana Poulton
I found
Anthony Rooley's exposition
of the
philosophy
and
imagery
in certain of Dowland's
songs ('New light
on John Dowland's
songs
of darkness', EM Jan 83
pp.6-21) extremely interesting.
I think he makes a
convincing
case for Dowland's
having
been
fully
aware of the
implication
of the words in these
songs.
Nevertheless I am not convinced that
my
estimate of
his character is incorrect.
Rooley quotes
from Thomas
Fuller, without
any
qualification,
that Dowland was'a cheerful
person ...
passing
his
days
in lawful
merriment'
(p.6).
But
Fuller's
History of
the Worthies
of England
was
published
posthumously by
his son John in 1662, 36
years
after
Dowland's death. Fuller himself
may
never have
known
Dowland, for he makes two incorrect statements
when he writes of his
'being
Servant in the
Chapel
to
Queen
Elizabeth and
King
James': Dowland was never
in Elizabeth's service in
any capacity,
as is shown in
the Audit Office Declared Accounts and
by
his own
complaints,
and there is no evidence whatsoever that
he was connected with the
Chapel Royal during
his
appointment
to the court of James
I.
Surely
if Fuller
had known Dowland these errors would not have been
made.
Henry Peacham, who claimed Dowland as a friend,
paints
a
very
different
picture
of him in his
poem
Heere,
EARLY MUSIC OCTOBER 1983 517
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I A canon
by
Dowland on the first line of the chorale Vater unser im
Himmelreich, with the
composer's signature;
from the Album amicorum
(1599-1606)
of Johannes Cellarius of
Nuremberg (London,
British
Library, Add.27579, f.88)
Philomel, in silence sits alone,
which
appeared
in Minerva
Britanna in 1612. Peacham describes Dowland and his
music as
being
out of fashion and
neglected.
But at the
time his music was
echoing through
most of
Europe
as
__...--..
---- -----

well as in
England,
and it can
only
be surmised that
Peacham wrote thus after
listening
to
complaints
from
his friend that he had not received at court
them
recognition
he believed his due. Later,
in The
Compleat
Gentleanna in
(1622),
Peacham wrote 'Of
my good
friend
Master Doctor Dowland,
in
regard
he has
slipt many
opportunities
of advancement'.
Dowland used on
throuitle-page
of some of his
publications
such mottos
(in Latin)
as: 'The arts that
help
mankind cannot help
their master'; 'Whom
fortune has not blessed, he either rages
or weeps';
and
the description
of himself as 'Gio. Dulande infoelice
Inglese'. Certainly
these could be taken as being
all
part
of the construction of an artistic 'persona';
but
there are other complaints
of Dowland's that can
hardly
be of such a kind.
In the entertainment
Daphne
and
Apollo, played
before Elizabeth I at
Sudeley
Castle in
1592,
in which
Dowland's
song My
heart and
tongue
were twinnes was
performed,
a little scene is introduced that is
entirely
irrevelant to the
argument
of the entertainment. In it
the character 'Do.'
(abbreviations
are used for all the
names)
has these lines: 'I have
plaide
so
long
with
my
fingers,
that I have/beaten out of
play
all
my good
fortune'.
But above all it is in his
long
letter written to Sir
Robert Cecil from
Nuremberg
in
1595, disclosing
the
plotting
of the
English
in Florence
against
the
queen's
life, that Dowland reveals his resentment at the
thwarting
of his ambition to secure a
post
at Elizabeth's
court.
Rooley
states that Dowland undertook his
journey
to
Italy
in order to meet Marenzio; and this is
the reason the
composer gives
in his Firste Booke
of
Songes.
But in his letter to Cecil he
gives
a
quite
different reason for his wish to travel:
Then in time
passing
one Mr. Johnson died & I became an
humble suitor for his
place (thinking myself
the most
worthiest)
wherein I found
many good
and honourable
friends that
spake
for me, but I saw that I was like to
go
without it, and that
any may
have
preferment
but I, whereby
I
began
to sound the cause, and
guessed
that
my religion
was
my
hindrance.
Whereupon my
mind
being
troubled I desired
to
get beyond
the seas which I durst not
attempt
without a
licence from some of the
Privy
council
...
After
describing
his
meeting
with one of the
plotters
in
Florence, who tried to
persuade
him to
join
them and
promised
him a
large pension
from the
pope
if he did
so, Dowland
goes
on to
say:
After
my departure
I called to mind our conference &
got
me
by myself
&
wept heartily,
to see
my
fortune so hard that I
should become servant to the
greatest enemy
of
my prince:
country:
wife: children: and friends: for want...
He admits to
having
been converted to Catholicism
during
the
period
he
spent
in
France; but there is no
evidence that he remained a
practising
Catholic on his
return to
England;
indeed, he could not have obtained
the
degree
of Bachelor of Music at Oxford in 1588 had
any
such
suspicion
been attached to his name.
Perhaps
the most
telling argument against
the idea
that his
religion
was his hindrance is the fact that his
licence to travel abroad was
signed by
Cecil and the
Earl of Essex; for this licence was
expressly
used to
prevent
Catholics travelling
as links between those at
home and those abroad who were
plotting
the
queen's
overthrow. In fact, no one was
appointed
in John
Johnson's place
at court for four
years,
and the
518 EARLY MUSIC OCTOBER 1983
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reduction in the number of court musicians
may
simply
have been a result of one of the
many attempts
to
bring
about some economies in the
heavy expend-
iture of the
royal
household. It is clear that Dowland
abandoned his stated intention of
visiting
Marenzio in
Rome and fled to
Nuremberg,
where he wrote his letter
to Cecil.
Dowland's final
complaints
were made in A
Pilgrimes
Solace
(entered
in the Stationers'
Register
on 28
October
1611)
and were directed
against
his fellow
musicians. In the most extreme terms he attacks
'Cantors',
'young-men, professors
of the
lute',
'divers
strangers
from
beyond
the seas' and Tobias Hume. No
other music book of the
period
had ever been used as a
medium for abuse of this kind. On his
appointment
to
the court of James I
just
one
year
later, his
complaints
ceased. His ambition realized, he
appears
to have
enjoyed
a
period
of
tranquillity
until his death in 1626.
Surely
these various
complaints-together
with the
extraordinarily
cavalier
way
in which he treated his
lucrative
employment
at the court of Christian IV
of
Denmark, by overstaying
his leave and
contracting
heavy debts-suggest
a man embittered
by long
failure to achieve ambition, rather than one conscious-
ly constructing
an artistic
persona
for himself.
The Elizabethan
Competitive
Festival 1923-6
Elizabeth Roche
In the field of
early
music, where the time-scale
usually
runs in centuries, a mere 60th
anniversary
might
not seem
very
remarkable. Yet it would be a
pity
to let 1983
go by
without
remembering
the
attempt
of
60
years ago
to establish a
competitive
festival based
entirely
on Elizabethan music. This was one of the
boldest
single
ventures ever made in the
long struggle
to win for
'old',
'ancient' or
'early'
music the
recog-
nition it deserves. After all,
if the idea had taken root,
and the Elizabethan Festival had survived to see its
diamond
jubilee,
its influence on the revival of
early
music could well have been considerable, and 1983
would have been the occasion for celebration, not
commemoration.
Such a venture could not of course have been
initiated in a vacuum, and when the first
plans
were
made in 1922 the omens must have seemed
particularly
auspicious.
An Elizabethan festival would be an ideal
way
of
spreading
the Tudor
gospel by bringing
together
two
important
elements in
contemporary
musical life: the
40-year-old competitive
festival
movement, with its
probably
unrivalled
power
to
influence the musical taste of
ordinary people,
and the
'Elizabethan fever' of the 1920s.
There was of course
nothing
new about the
appearance
of
16th-century
music at a
competitive
festival.
English (and
sometimes
Italian) madrigals
and
Tudor anthems had been used as
test-pieces
since the
early days
of the movement,
as an essential
ingredient
in that
process
of
bringing ordinary people
into
contact with the best music, which was its main
object.
The Musical Times made this clear in its
report
on the 14th of Miss
Wake'field's pioneering
com-
petitions
at Kendal in 1899:
It is indeed in the character of the music set as tests that the
value of these
competitions largely
consists
...
the eleven
choirs that had
prepared
with such
pains
Marenzio's
Lady,
see on
every
side could not but be the better for
becoming
intimate with such music, and less
likely
to be contented
with the sentimental
pot-boilers
that are, alas, so common.'
From about 1900 onwards the
competitive
festival
movement
expanded
with
breathtaking speed: great
cities, fashionable resorts, small market towns and
even scattered
country
districts all had their festivals,
and
many
of their
syllabuses habitually
included mad-
rigals,
whether for
village-choir
classes in rural
Rutland or Northumberland, or for the
epic
battles
fought
out beside the Lancashire seaside as the crack
choirs of northern
England
strove for the coveted
Challenge
Shields at
Blackpool
and Morecambe. In the
latter case, the use of a
madrigal
as one of the three
tests had a
particular
value: the difficult modern
pieces,
written for these classes
by
such
composers
as
Bantock,
increasingly
tested the
competitors'
tech-
nique
at the
expense
of their
interpretative powers,
and as the Times
report
on the 1912
Blackpool
Festival
pointed
out, the
madrigal gave
the choirs a chance to
'concentrate
their musical
perceptions'
on a fine but
relatively straightforward piece.2
By
1920, when the movement was well on the
way
to
recovering
from the
disruption
caused
by
World War I,
the
madrigal
had become
part
of the festivals' artistic
tradition, though
of course the
setting
of
madrigals
as
tests was no
guarantee
that they
would be
adequately
performed (the
available evidence
suggests
that often
they were not). But the festivals were nevertheless well
placed
to capitalize
on the wave of enthusiasm for
Elizabethan music that presently swept
the country,
EARLY MUSIC OCTOBER 1983 519
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