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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2017
Samuel Howard (?1710–1782) has long been a familiar inhabitant of the diligent footnotes of Handel biographers. A choirboy in the Chapel Royal, he was a member of Handel's chorus and the composer of much theatre music of his own; he later became organist of both St Bride's, Fleet Street and nearby St Clement Danes, Strand, where he was buried in 1782. His most significant and ambitious work is his fine orchestrally accompanied anthem ‘This is the day which the Lord hath made’, published posthumously in 1792 with an impressive title page detailing the performance of the work ‘at St Margaret's Church before the governors of the Westminster Infirmary, in the Two Universities, and upon many other Publick Occasions in different parts of the Kingdom’. This article confirms for the first time that this work originated as Howard's doctoral exercise; contemporary press reports and information in the University archives make clear that the composer's doctorate was linked to the provision of music for the Duke of Grafton's installation as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1769. Surviving information about this event offers a glimpse of musical life in Cambridge on a comparable scale to the much better reported proceedings upon similar occasions in Oxford. This evidence then serves as a starting-point from which to consider Howard's later prominence as a director of high-profile public performances in London and the provinces.
Earlier versions of this research were presented at the ‘Music in Eighteenth-Century Britain’ study day at the Foundling Museum, London on 25 November 2016, and at a Faculty Colloquium at Liverpool Hope University on 14 December 2016. I thank Tim Eggington for his interest in the project and for helping to locate several references to performances of Howard's anthem in the 1770s; thanks also to Harry Johnstone, who read and commented upon an earlier version of the present text.
1 Burrows, Donald, Handel and the English Chapel Royal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 252, 393, note 28, and 575Google Scholar.
2 Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal, 289, 299, note 35, 301 and 393, note 28.
3 Donald F. Cook, ‘The Life and Works of Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667–1752), with Special Reference to his Dramatic Works and Cantatas’, two volumes (PhD dissertation, King's College, London, 1982), volume 1, 77, note 12, and 321–322; Eggington, Tim, The Advancement of Music in Enlightenment England: Benjamin Cooke and the Academy of Ancient Music (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2014), 47 and 85Google Scholar; Johnstone, H. Diack, ‘Westminster Abbey and the Academy of Ancient Music: A Library Once Lost and Now Partially Recovered’, Music & Letters 95/3 (2014), 332 and 370Google Scholar.
4 For general accounts of Howard see Roger Fiske, ‘Howard, Samuel’, Grove Music Online www.oxfordmusiconline.com (26 September 2016); Louisa M. Middleton, ‘Howard, Samuel (1710–1782)’, revised K. D. Reynolds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography www.oxforddnb.com (29 September 2016).
5 I am aware of no direct family connection, however.
6 Howard, Samuel, The Musical Companion, volume 4 (London: Walsh, c 1754)Google Scholar. The date given here is from the British Library Catalogue entry for shelfmark G.347.a; the Privilege is printed immediately after the title-page.
7 Burney, Charles, A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, four volumes (London: author, 1776), volume 4, 672 Google Scholar.
8 Middleton, revised Reynolds, ‘Howard, Samuel’.
9 Howard, Samuel, The Overture, Act Tunes, and Songs, in the Entertainment call'd the Amorous Goddess . . . for the Harpsichord, German Flute, or Violin (London: Walsh, 1744)Google Scholar; see Fiske, ‘Howard, Samuel’.
10 Howard, Samuel, A Cantata and English Songs Set to Music by Mr Howard (London: Walsh, c 1750)Google Scholar.
11 ‘a splendid anthem . . . the opening chorus, largely fugal, is remarkably vigorous’ (Fiske, ‘Howard, Samuel’); ‘a fine anthem’ (Middleton, revised Reynolds, ‘Howard, Samuel’); ‘his impressive orchestral anthem’ (Eggington, The Advancement of Music, 85).
12 A detailed assessment of the work is beyond the scope of this article; since my argument later on hinges upon Howard's ideological commitment to ancient music, however, it is useful to establish this stylistic association at the outset, even if only superficially. A modern edition is in press: Howard, Samuel, This is the Day which the Lord hath Made: Anthem for Soprano, Alto and Bass Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra, ed. Howard, Alan (Mytholmroyd: Peacock, 2017)Google Scholar. This will facilitate more sustained consideration of the work alongside existing studies of related repertoire. See, for example, Monte Edgel Atkinson, ‘The Orchestral Anthem in England, 1700–1775’ (DMA dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1991); Donald Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal; H. Diack Johnstone, ‘The Life and Work of Maurice Greene (1696–1755)’ (DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford, 1968); and John A. Van Nice, ‘The Larger Sacred Choral Works of William Boyce (1710–1779)’ (PhD dissertation, University of Iowa, 1956).
13 Wollenberg, Susan, Music at Oxford in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 16 (and on Burney's DMus in general, 15–19)Google Scholar.
14 I thank Peter Holman for alerting me to the similarities between Handel's and Howard's anthems.
15 Collection of Old Music: A Catalogue of the Greater Part of the Valuable Collection of Vocal and Instrumental Music, Late the Property of Dr. Samuel Howard, Deceased . . . which will be Sold by Auction by Mr. White . . . on Tuesday, June 25, 1799 (London, British Library, Hirsch IV.1083a); see page 5, item 39. The description (‘Two Odes, Oxford, 2 Songs, Dr. Boyce, and an Ode, Dr. Croft’) is admittedly ambiguous, but in the absence of obvious candidates for these works among Boyce's music, Croft's publication looks likely. A manuscript copy of Handel's ‘The King Shall Rejoice’ is also listed under item 76 on page 7.
16 See Johnstone, H. Diack, ‘Music and Drama at the Oxford Act of 1713’, in Concert Life in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. Wollenberg, Susan and McVeigh, Simon (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 199–218 Google Scholar.
17 Fiske, ‘Howard, Samuel’; Eggington, The Advancement of Music, 85, note 57.
18 See Johnstone, ‘Music and Drama at the Oxford Act of 1713’; also Susan Wollenberg, ‘Music in 18th-Century Oxford’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 108/1 (1981–1982), 69–99; and Wollenberg, Music at Oxford, especially chapter 2, ‘Music in an Academic Context, I’, 8–34.
19 Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal, 447, note 37.
20 Choron, Alexandre-Étienne and Fayolle, François-Joseph-Marie, ‘Howard (Samuel)’, Dictionnaire historique des musiciens, two volumes (Paris: Valade, 1810; facsimile edition, Hildesheim: Olms, 1971), volume 1, 342 Google Scholar.
21 Howard's role as Boyce's assistant in the compilation of Cathedral Music is widely attested; see, for example, The Lady's Magazine (16 February 1779), 95–96, where William Hayes is named alongside Howard in a description of Boyce's funeral. Howard's music was unlikely, in fact, to have been included by Boyce in Cathedral Music, which extended only as far as the opening decades of the eighteenth century (with music by Weldon, Clarke and Croft); neither, though, is any music by Howard included in Samuel Arnold's volumes under the same title, of 1790.
22 The Gentleman's Magazine, volume 2 (1782), 359.
23 Kassler, Michael, Music Entries at Stationers’ Hall, 1710–1818 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)Google Scholar. Copies seem to have been available to the public as early as 12 June; see The St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post (12–14 June 1792).
24 These are as follows: Cambridge, University Library, mus.11.8; London, British Library, g.502.(3.); London, Royal College of Music, D503.
25 Records of the Sun Fire Office (insurers), London Metropolitan Archives, MS 11936/373/575109.
26 Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices’ Indentures, 1710–1811; The National Archives, Kew, Board of Stamps: Apprenticeship Books, Series IR 1, 17 June 1776. Accessed via ancestry.com (10 November 2016).
27 Middlesex, City of London Burials 1754–1855, Greater London burial index. Accessed via findmypast.co.uk (27 September 2016).
28 Highfill, Philip H., Burnim, Kalman A. and Langhans, Edward A., A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, sixteen volumes, volume 8: Hough to Keyse (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 3–4 Google Scholar.
29 Collection of Old Music . . . Late the Property of Dr. Samuel Howard, Deceased, items 125–134, pages 9–10.
30 Derby Mercury (13 September 1751): ‘On Wednesday Night, about Six o'Clock, Mr. Samuel Howard, of St. Clement's Danes, was robbed by a single Highwayman, well mounted on a dark-brown Horse, of Two Guineas and a Half, and some Silver, on this Side [of] the old Turnpike at Lambeth. There were three or four Persons on Foot within five Yards of the Highwayman’.
31 Eggington, The Advancement of Music, 59–60. On the requirements at Oxford see Wollenberg, Music at Oxford, 13–15.
32 Cambridge University Archives, Supplicats for Degrees, Supplicats 67 (1768–1769), item 101. I thank Ralph Hawtrey for his improvements to several details of my translation of this document. Johnstone, ‘The Life and Work of Maurice Greene’, 118, transcribes the similarly worded supplicat for Greene's 1730 doctorate.
33 Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal, 288–289, 575; Christopher Hogwood, ‘Randall, John’, Grove Music Online www.oxfordmusiconline.com (11 November 2016).
34 See Matthews, Betty, ‘Joah Bates: A Remarkable Amateur’, The Musical Times 126 (December 1985), 749–753 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Owain Edwards and William Weber, ‘Bates, Joah’, Grove Music Online www.oxfordmusiconline.com (11 November 2016), state that Bates did not become a fellow of King's until 1770, the year following this evidence that he was already acting as Praelector in 1769; be that as it may, his association with the college went back as far as his matriculation in 1760, graduating BA in 1764 and MA in 1767.
35 For a useful if informal summary of the history of academic study of music at Cambridge see Martin Cullingford, ‘A Degree of Harmony’, published on the Cambridge Music Faculty website at www.mus.cam.ac.uk/about-us/CambridgePast.pdf (11 November 2016).
36 Public Advertiser (4 July 1769).
37 St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post (6–8 July 1769); Middlesex Journal or Chronicle of Liberty (8–11 July 1769); Public Advertiser (10 July 1769). The London Chronicle (29 June–1 July 1769), apparently uniquely, reports the same event a week earlier on 27 June. But given the widespread agreement elsewhere as to the sequence of events, this seems most likely to be a garbled reference to the date of the Regents’ concession or acceptance of the relevant supplications, as visible in Figure 2 beneath Bates's attestation for Howard.
38 Public Advertiser (1 July 1769); see also the similar report in the Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer (29 June–1 July 1769).
39 Randall's Installation Ode set a text by Thomas Gray (see below) that was originally to have been set by Charles Burney; when the arrangement foundered over Burney's expensive plans for the orchestra, he submitted instead for the Oxford DMus, receiving the degree that same year, the week before the Cambridge Installation ceremony. See Lonsdale, Roger H., Dr. Charles Burney: A Literary Biography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 77–78 Google Scholar.
40 In fact, the text is assembled from a number of Psalm verses, all as given in the 1669 Book of Common Prayer: Ps. 118, vs. 24; Ps. 145, vs. 3; Ps. 46, vs. 9 and Ps. 68, vs. 6; Ps. 89, vs. 9, and Ps. 86, vs. 8; Ps. 89, vs. 15; Ps. 86, vs. 9 and Ps. 138, vss. 5, 2.
41 General Advertiser (1 July 1749).
42 Bartlett, Ian and Bruce, Robert J., William Boyce: A Tercentenary Sourcebook and Compendium (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 59 Google Scholar; for a fuller account of Boyce's role in the 1749 installation see pages 58–63.
43 Weber, William, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 127 (Acis & Galatea), 111–117 (Purcell's Te Deum)Google Scholar. On Boyce's version of Purcell's Te Deum see also Herissone, Rebecca, ‘Performance History and Reception’, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell, ed. Herissone, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 326–327 Google Scholar.
44 Gray, Thomas, Ode Performed in the Senate-House at Cambridge, July 1, 1769, at the Installation of his grace Augustus-Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of the University. Set to Music by Dr. Randal (Cambridge: J. Archdeacon, 1769)Google Scholar. For a useful bibliography and anthology of related writings see the relevant pages of David Hill Radcliffe, English Poetry 1579–1830: Spenser and the Tradition, spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?textsid=34777 (21 November 2016).
45 The Monthly Magazine, or British Register 15/4 (1 April 1803), 236.
46 See Nicholas Roe, ‘Dyer, George (1755–1841), in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography www.oxforddnb.com (21 November 2016).
47 Despite Dyer's assurance that the score of Gray's ode still existed in 1803, there is no mention of the score in Edward Randall's will at the National Archives, proved 18 January 1841 (PRO, Prob11/1940, pp. 46–48). The only musical reference concerns the bequest of his copies of the Histories of Burney and Hawkins to his daughter.
48 Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics, 178 and Appendix. On Pergolesi's earlier prominence in the concerts of the Academy of Ancient Music see Eggington, The Advancement of Music, 100–101.
49 Quoted in The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray, ed. Bradshaw, John (London: Bell, 1891), 297 Google Scholar.
50 Gray to Nicholls, 24 June 1769; printed in The Poems of Mr. Gray. To which are prefixed Memoirs of his Life and Writings, ed. Mason, William (York: Ward, 1775), 347.Google Scholar
51 Cudworth, Charles, ‘Thomas Gray and Music’, The Musical Times 112 (July 1971), 646–648 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 See, for example, the programme for Thursday, 12 February 1789, which details about thirty-five singers (depending on the number of ‘Dr. Cooke's [Westminster Abbey] Boys’ in attendance) and thirty-six instrumentalists.
53 St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post (5–8 July 1777), for example.
54 St James's Chronicle (5–8 July 1777).
55 Heighes, Simon, The Life and Work of William and Philip Hayes (New York: Garland, 1995; reprinted Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 53Google Scholar.
56 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (5 July 1777).
57 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (5 July 1777); St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post (5–8 July 1777).
58 St James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post (5–8 July 1777).
59 Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (8 July 1777).
60 Eggington, The Advancement of Music, 60; Johnstone, ‘The Life and Work of Maurice Greene’, 118–125.
61 Johnstone, ‘The Life and Work of Maurice Greene’, 125.
62 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (5 July 1777): ‘A very numerous band, both vocal and instrumental, were provided. Mrs [Margaret] Farrel [later Kennedy; died 1793], first singer, from Ranelagh, was much admired; as were likewise Miss Mahon [Elizabeth(?), born late 1750s, or one of her sisters], Mess. Nares [presumably not the organist and composer, who had been a MusD of Cambridge since 1757] and [John?] Mathews, &c. The instrumental part was led by Mr. Fisher’.
63 On this pattern of rehearsal and performance at the Academy see Eggington, The Advancement of Music, 78–80. It should be noted that, as in the case of the 1777 Oxford performance, very few of the sources listed in Table 1 identify Howard's anthem fully by its incipit (‘an Anthem, by Dr. Howard’ being the typical formulation). While this kind of listing frequently proves problematic when trying to identify a specific anthem by Handel or Boyce in the advertisements, the situation is much clearer with Howard, who is only known to have composed one such work.
64 Another exception should be made for the extraordinary popularity at the Academy of Ancient Music (and the later Concerts of Antient Music) of a Gloria in Excelsis Deo by one Francesco Negri. See Johnstone, ‘Westminster Abbey and the Academy of Ancient Music’, 348–350.
65 See, for example, Weber, The Rise of Musical Classics, 103–118.
66 St James's Chronicle or British Evening Post (20–23 March 1773).
67 London Evening Post (24–26 February 1774). The Society of Antient Britons was an organization devoted to supporting the children of impoverished Welsh parents, and was also involved in the preservation of the ‘Antient British language’ (that is, Welsh). It is not inconceivable that the ‘anthem’ performed on this occasion was ‘This is the day’ again, though there is no mention either of instrumentalists or of a soprano soloist.
68 St James's Chronicle (19 September 1761). Range, Matthias, Music and Ceremonial at British Coronations: From James I to Elizabeth II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 174–175 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, assumes this to be Samuel Howard, but recent research by Fiona Smith suggests that it was instead a William Howard, then a member of the Chapel Royal (personal communication).
69 Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (25 September 1775). Such wording is characteristic of critical notices in English newspapers of the period; more would need to be known about the cultural life of this county town before its likely veracity here could be judged.
70 Hawkins, Laetitia Matilda, Anecdotes, Biographical Sketches and Memoirs (London: Rivington, 1822), 225 Google Scholar.
71 See Holman, Peter, ‘ Before the Baton: A Preliminary Report’, Early Music 41/1 (2013), 58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
72 Eggington, The Advancement of Music, 50–51.
73 See Laurie, A. Margaret, ‘Allegory, Sources, and Early Performance History’, in Purcell, Henry, Dido and Aeneas: An Opera, ed. Price, Curtis (New York: Norton, 1986), 58 Google Scholar. The manuscript in question seems unlikely to be British Library, Add. 31450, as Laurie suggests, however, since the previous item in that volume is dated 1784, after Howard's death. Nor is it identifiable in the sale catalogue of Howard's library (Collection of Old Music), though this does not necessarily mean that it was not included in the sale, since several lots seem to be loose descriptions of multiple items.
74 This concert may also have had significant consequences for Joah Bates, if it was the occasion on which (as widely reported) Howard encountered the ‘English musical phenomenon’ and ‘Lancashire St. Cecilia’, Miss Harrop, in Leicester. Howard's rapture with her voice was such that Bates was dispatched from London on behalf of Lord Sandwich's Catch Club to bring her to the capital, and Bates and Harrop were later married (see The Lady's Magazine 12 (1781), 525–526). Standard biographical accounts (Grove Music Online and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography included) garble the story by referring to ‘Dr. Howard, of Leicester’, perpetuating an error already present in Anon., ‘Mr. and Mrs. Joah Bates: A Distinguished Amateur and a Notable Singer’, The Musical Times 46 (January 1905), 13–20. See, though, Betty Matthews, ‘Joah Bates: A Remarkable Amateur’, 750.
75 London Evening Post (2–4 August 1774). Compare, though, the similar description for 19 September 1777, where the canticles and anthems are described as ‘accommodated to the much-admired Church Music of some of the most eminent Italian Composers’ (London Chronicle, 19–21 August 1777).
76 Tantalizingly, a nineteenth-century set of seventeen manuscript parts for the work does exist at the Royal College of Music Library (MS 917). Apparently copied from the exemplar of the 1792 print also at the Royal College of Music (D503), once belonging to William Russell (1777–1813), these parts come from the library of the Sacred Harmonic Society, which could certainly have mounted a performance in the 1800s. It is doubtful whether these parts were ever used in a complete performance of the anthem, however, since the alto solo ‘Righteousness and equity’ was never copied into the ‘Alto principle [sic]’ part (which contains a copy of the transverse flute obbligato part only, pasted in at the point where the solo should be), nor does this movement appear in the main ‘Alto’ part.
