John Blow
John Blow (
1649 –
October 1,
1708) was an
English composer and
organist. His pupils included
William Croft and
Henry Purcell.
Blow was probably born at
North Collingham in
Nottinghamshire. He became a chorister of the
Chapel Royal, and distinguished himself by his proficiency in music.
He composed several
anthems at an unusually early age, including
Lord, Thou host been our refuge,
Lord, rebuke me not and the so-called "club anthem",
I will always give thanks, the last in collaboration with
Pelham Humfrey and William Turner, either in honour of a victory over the
Dutch in
1665, or more probably simply to commemorate the friendly intercourse of the three choristers.
To this time also belongs the composition of a two-part setting of
Robert Herrick's
Goe, perjur'd man, written at the request of
Charles II to imitate
Giacomo Carissimi's
Dite, o cieli. In
1669 Blow became organist of
Westminster Abbey. In
1673 he was made a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and in the September of this year he married Elizabeth Braddock, who died in childbirth ten years later.
Blow, who by the year
1678 was a doctor of music, was named in
1685 one of the private musicians of
James II. Between
1680 and
1687 he wrote his only stage composition of which any record survives, the
Masque for the entertainment of the King,
Venus and Adonis. In this
Mary Davies played the part of
Venus, and her daughter by Charles II, Lady Mary Tudor, appeared as
Cupid.
In
1687 he became master of the choir of
St Paul's Cathedral; in
1695 he was elected organist of
St Margaret's, Westminster, and is said to have resumed his post as organist of Westminster Abbey, from which in
1680 he had retired or been dismissed to make way for Purcell. In
1699 he was appointed to the newly created post of Composer to the Chapel Royal.
Fourteen
services and more than a hundred anthems by Blow are known. In addition to his purely ecclesiastical music Blow wrote
Great sir, the joy of all our hearts, an
ode for New Year's Day
1682, similar compositions for
1683,
1686,
1687,
1688,
1689,
1693 (?),
1694 and
1700; odes, and the like, for the celebration of
St Cecilia's Day for
1684,
1691,
1695 and
1700; for the coronation of James II, two anthems,
Behold, O God, our Defender and
God spake sometimes in visions; some
harpsichord pieces for the second part of
Henry Playford's
Musick's handmaid (
1689);
Epicedium for Queen Mary (
1695) and
Ode on the Death of Purcell (
1696). In
1700 he published his
Amphion Anglicus, a collection of pieces of music for one, two, three and four voices, with a
figured bass accompaniment.
A famous page in
Charles Burney's
History of Music is devoted to illustrations of Blow's "crudities", most of which only show the meritorious if immature efforts in expression characteristic of English music at the time, while some of them (where Burney says "Here we are lost") are really excellent. Blow died on
October 1 1708 at his house in Broad Sanctuary, and was buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey.
