Coronation Music

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 431, 12 May 1937, Page 2

Coronation Music

Masters of Harmony at Abbey

Until he late- Sir Frederick Bridge unear.h.d boule imormat .or. relative to the Corona;.on ,1 Que. u Victoria and Willi-m IV, v. had L le know, ledge appertaining to the musical side of the ceremony other tnan that “a chief musician” had cus omarily been appointed and that music had played a not unimportant part. “When Dr. Bridge, in 1902 was commissioned “Direc or of Music” for the Coronation of Edward VII, over 60 years had elapsed since a British coronation, and although he found two singers who had participated in Victoria’s Coronation and one in William’s they could remember From other sources, however. story could be pieced toge her. A 1 the Coronation of William IV and

' Queen Victoria the music was in the • hands of Sir George Smart, organist lof he Chapel Royal. He wax 1 the ' “big man’’ of the day, musically, and | had been nominated by William himI self as “chief musician.’’ Sir George ! Smcrt had for William’s Coronation I rather meagre choral forces, consist. I ing of choristers from tb« Chapei ! Royal St. Paul’s Windsor, land West. i minster supplemented by 21 choral : singers engaged for the occasion. I When preparations were under war i for Victoria’s Coronation, Smart, I realising the inadequacy of volume at i the previous Coronation, applied for permission to engage more forces. In the end a chcral and instrumental body was increased to about 400 performers.

• Bjidge tells us that the popular I singer Braham was paid a fee of I twenty guine. s (only to sing in the ; chorus) and Henry Phillips, a bass 1 vocalist of She day, fifteen guineas. • Balfe the composer of the “BohemI lan Girl” was offered a fee of ten | guineas, but, according to Sir George, ’ “he returned no answer.” Musicians, i like members of other professions, can 1 have their pride. Of the music psr- | formed, Sir George Smart has left no . particulars, However,, it is known i that Attwood, the organist of St, Paul’s ; Cathedral, composed the anthem “I I Wats Glad” for the Corona. , tion of George IV and one for Wiljliim’s Corona ion. He died before j Victoria wae crowned. | At the two Coronations during the | present century ] arge orchestral and I choral forces have been engaged, and 'here i 8 a complete list of the music performed. Sir Frederick Bridge, fitter being assured by the Archbishop of Canterbury that "the music was his job, not the Archbishop’s,” drew | up a service of music from five cen. j 'unes of church music (mostly Engpish), a domain in which English I music is seen at its best T 1,,.

mortal Purcell, a former organist at | Westminster Abbey, and Orlando j bins, also Ulus'rious in English seventeenth century music, and like Pur_ I cell, a one-time organist at the AbI bey, was well to the fore. Handel’s I masterly Coronation anthem ‘‘Zadok, I the Pre&t,” is traditionally performI ed. Of nineteenth cen'ury composers represented, Samuel Sebastian Wesley found 'an honoured place, as be. i fitted one of the greatest of English : cathedral musicians. Others includj ed by Bridge were Sir Arthur Sullivan, Sir John S ainer, Sir Hubert Parry, Villiers Stanford and himself: At the Coronation of George V nine years later, 4he name of Edward Elgar inevitably found a place. Also Frederick Cowen <and Edward German. It is interes'ing to note that .nearly all the British composers re. I presented were either at the time or j subsequently Knight Batchelors — | Bridge, Stanford, Parry, Sullivan, ; Stainer, Cowen, Elgar, German | (whose real name was Jones). | As- brevity is to be a keynote of j the ceremony perhaps there will be j i formerly. Certainly > m; appr iaching that prodigious 1 length of by-joii ’ days whon ihe orj deal had arrony other things'- “Six i long anthems ta.sid' s to ho chanted.”