Although for some folks the word “research” conjures up images of musty graybeards poring endlessly over yellowing volumes in mouldering libraries, research can be a lively and downright delectable activity. Of late I’ve been indulging my penchant for the art, for various reasons including preparing a pre-concert lecture on English music for the San Francisco Symphony.
I have grown rather fond of the huddled little group of English composers who were active during the Restoration, i.e., from 1660 to about 1690 or so. They were pioneers, thanks to those dour Puritans who had done their damndest to destroy centuries of English musical munificence. The period of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate (1649-1660) had been particularly tough sledding, with English musicians dispersed throughout Europe or skulking about in the far provinces. Although music had continued to be made during this dark era (William Lawes comes to mind), forward momentum had been lost and England was seriously out of touch with the heady Baroque idiom that was all the rage on the Continent.
Once Charles II was on the throne and those killjoys silenced (Charles actually fired a particularly tiresome old-school chapel musician) the boys got to it, but not without some false starts. Among the first figures was Henry Cooke, who, due to his military achievements, is often referred to as Captain Cooke. Of course he isn’t the same Captain Cook of nautical glory—and the spelling is different—but nonetheless I can’t help but imagine him as rehearsing the boys of the chapel in an anthem for the Sunday services, and then jumping on the Endeavour for a quick look at Hawaii or Tahiti. The state of native English composition is brutally revealed by the technical crassness of some of Cooke’s work. The guy was the head of the king’s chapel in a country that had produced such consummate masters as John Dunstable, William Byrd, and Thomas Tallis, and yet he was prone to elementary gaffes like parallel fifths. The English composers had some catching up to do.
It would seem that little Pelham Humfrey was an early example of Anglo-American Franco-excluso-philia, in which a young Brit or American spends time in France, and upon returning home behaves like an insufferable twit to everyone in sight and/or earshot. French = good, they insist, Homestyle = bad. Most of them get over it, thank God. (A college chum of mine never did, and now she lives in France permanently, more or less to everybody’s relief.) At least if Samuel Pepys is to be trusted (and that’s not always a good idea), young Mr. Humfrey was quite the obnoxious jerk. However, he died at age 27 so we’ll never know if he got over it or not, but he did leave us some eloquent vocal music.
Of course there’s Henry Purcell, that seemingly-infinite resource of musical marvels. Was there anything he couldn’t write? Like Mozart, he was an absolute master of all the idioms of his day, capable of just about anything from the most intimate lyricism to the most glorious spectacle. Like Mozart, he died at the age of 36. And like Mozart, that death was a tragic loss to the history of art. What both composers might have done had they lived!
In another early death, but this time brimming with black comedy, we find Jeremiah Clarke, organist to the Chapel Royal. Poor Jerry: he acquired a heedless, headlong lusty passion for a high-born lady, one so far above him that she might as well have been on the Moon. In the agony of unrequited love, Jerry retired to the country to End It All. He stood beside a bucolic pond and debated whether to drown himself or hang himself from the overhanging trees. Unable to decide (this sort of thing can be so difficult to pull off with the appropriate style, after all), Jerry flipped a coin. The Fates being in a particularly skanky mood that day, the coin landed precisely on its edge in a patch of mud.
So Jerry shot himself. Requiescat in pace, pal, and next time (except there won’t be a next time, alas) seek counsel from an older man, who will reassure you that not only will you get over it, but you’ll recover a hell of a lot sooner than you think.
*****
In other research news, I would like to share a delectable tidbit that came my way courtesy of my role as guest curator for the Museum of Performance and Design’s summer lobby exhibit at the San Francisco Opera. I’m coming up with a display case full of stuff about Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West.
You may be aware that Puccini based his opera on David Belasco’s immensely successful stage play, which had been running at the Belasco Theater on 44th St. in New York. When the play closed in 1907, Belasco moved to a larger theater on 42nd Street. The 44th St. theater went through a few hands over the years, and in 1931 was purchased by Billy Minsky. Yes, that Billy Minsky.
Thus is was that The Girl of the Golden West played in the theater destined to become the notorious Minsky’s Burlesque, that temple of female concupiscence famous for Gypsy Rose Lee and frequent police raids as the bared boobies jiggled just a bit too much for the morality nannies of the day. Minsky’s closed sooner or later and the strippers put their pasties in storage. Gypsy Rose Lee went on to the Ziegfield Follies, then to Las Vegas, then to guest shots on the Jack Paar Show, and eventually wrote an autobiography that became the smash hit musical Gypsy. The theater went to wrack and ruin, hitting rock bottom in the 1970s as a ratty rent-a-raincoat porn flick dive. Then the government bought it, part of the overall cleanup of Times Square. Now it’s the New Victory Theater, and specializes in children’s shows.
What lovely ironies lie about, just waiting to be picked up.