Johann Pepusch left his native Germany to settle in England and was certainly in London by 1704. He was at first employed as a viola player and later as harpsichordist at the Drury Lane Theatre. There he collaborated with several of the leading literary figures of the day in the production of a series of masques. Among these was Venus and Adonis, whose success did much to establish his reputation in the London musical world.

Like William Croft, Pepusch was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music at Oxford in 1713. He served for about 20 years as musical director to the Duke of Chandos at Cannons, and wrote a considerable amount of church music for the chapel there. Handel was also at Cannons during Pepusch's period as director, but his position there was as resident composer. Around 1726 the Academy of Ancient Music was established, and Pepusch was among the 13 founder-members. Later in 1735, he became its director and under him a series of subscription concerts was given, which featured a number of distinguished musicians, including Handel and Geminiani. Pepusch's name is strongly associated with the Beggar's Opera, to which he contributed the overture and the song-settings. This piece was such a popular success that it has perhaps overshadowed Pepusch's other achievements, which include a considerable number of instrumental works, as well as the church music and stage works referred to.

Five Cantatas with Recorder

for soprano/tenor, recorder, and continuo

His twelve English Cantatas were published in two volumes in London in the period 1710-20. The first volume, entitled SIX/ ENGLISH/ Cantatas/ Humbly Inscrib'd/ To the most Noble the/ Marchioness of KENT contains the first work of the present edition, Corydon. The pieces in the first volume are set with various obbligato instruments, or in one case continuo only. The second volume is entitled Six/ English Cantatas/ for one voice/ Four for a FLUTE/ and two with a TRUMPET/ and other instruments, and it is from this volume that the other four cantatas of the present edition are taken. The pieces from the second volume are not given titles, but the authors of the texts are given, and include some of the well-known poets of the day.

These five are elegant and entertaining pieces; the characters Corydon, Menalcas , Thyrsis, from Virgil's Arcadia are joined by nymphs and shepherds from the English madrigal tradition. While all the cantatas can be sung by a soprano, No 2, Love frowns in beauteous Myra's eyes, and No 4, When Love's soft passion would also be appropriate for a tenor, because of the 'persona' of the singer.

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from The Death of Dido, 1716

Johann Pepusch collaborated with several of the leading literary figures of the day in the production of a series of masques. Among these was Venus and Adonis, whose success did much to establish his reputation in the London musical world, and another was The Death of Dido, which was performed at Drury Lane Theatre in 1716, and from which the present recitative and aria is taken.

This short aria from The Death of Dido is a small masterpiece which deserves an honourable place among the laments inspired by the tragedy of Dido's love for Aeneas.

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for SSMT soloists and orchestra       Score and parts

Johann Pepusch collaborated with several of the leading literary figures of the day in the production of a series of masques. Among these was Venus and Adonis, whose success did much to establish his reputation in the London musical world, and another was The Death of Dido, which was performed at Drury Lane Theatre in 1716. The manuscript source for The Death of Dido is in the Royal Academy of Music, and the assistance of the Librarian in making a copy of this available is gratefully acknowledged.
The instrumentation is not always clearly specified, as for example in the opening Symphony. However, a score and a set of parts prepared for the revival of Venus and Adonis at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1718/9 is held in the library of the Royal College of Music, and we are grateful to the Librarian for making these available for study, and for Peter Holman’s suggestion that these be looked at. Although the resources at Drury Lane Theatre may have differed from those at Lincoln’s Inn Fields a few years later, it is felt that these parts give valuable guidance to the performance of the present work.
Accordingly, the orchestral parts provided allow for oboes doubling violins and bassoon doubling basses in tutti passages, and where necessary, for the wind instruments either to transpose up an octave, or to double the voice part in order to fit their range. Some editorial suggestions have been made for variation in instrumentation.

sample pages- Pep3.PDF

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with an introduction by Peter Holman

Johann Christoph (John Christopher) Pepusch was born in Berlin in 1666 or 1667, the son of a Lutheran pastor. He became a court musician at an early age, but left Prussia after witnessing ‘a terrible act of despotism’, according to Charles Burney. He supposedly arrived in England by way of Holland shortly after the Treaty of Ryswick was signed in 1697, though he is not recorded working in London until 1704, and he only came to prominence when he produced the pasticcio Thomyris, Queen of Scythia at Drury Lane in April 1707; shortly after he became involved with the new Italian opera company at the Haymarket Theatre. He moved back to Drury Lane in 1714, where he wrote a series of attractive Italian masques, the model for Handel’s Acis and Galatea. He moved to the Lincolns Inn Fields Theatre in 1717, working there
on and off until 1732, and was responsible for the music for The Beggar’s Opera, first performed on 29 January 1728. During this time Pepusch contributed a great deal to London’s concert life, and between 1719 and 1723 he was musical director at Cannons, the Duke Chandos’s estate at Edgware in Middlesex. His later life was largely taken up with teaching and scholarship. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Ancient Music, and was its director until shortly before his death. He died on 20 July 1752.
Britannia and Augusta is one of Pepusch’s first major works. It is a setting of an elegiac ode by John Hughes (1667-1720) in memory of William Cavendish, fourth Earl and first Duke of Devonshire (1641-1707). Cavendish, a prominent Whig politician who played an important role in bringing about the Glorious Revolution of 1688, died in London on 18 August 1707 and was buried on 1 September at All Hallows, Derby. Hughes, a Whig writer and associate of Addison and Steele, provided Pepusch with many texts to set, including no fewer than twelve cantatas and the masque Apollo and Daphne (1707). Cavendish was interested in literature and music, and would have probably have come into contact with both poet and composer at literary gatherings or concerts. We know from the printed text that Britannia was sung by Margherita de l’Epine (Pepusch’s future wife) and Augusta by Catherine Tofts, and from Hughes’s correspondence that the venue was Stationers’ Hall; no record of the performance has survived, but it was presumably during the autumn of 1707. Given that the singers and the composer were members of the Italian opera company, then being formed, it is likely that the accompaniment was also provided by members of its future orchestra. The principal source of Pepusch’s music is a score in the hand of an unidentified contemporary copyist (Brussels Conservatoire, MS 1030), though there is also a copy apparently made from it by Henry Needler (British Library, Add. MS 5052).
Hughes’s ode is said to be ‘After the Italian Manner’ because it consists of a sequence of recitatives and da capo or dal segno arias. The fine four-movement overture begins with an Adagio in the manner of a funeral march and ends with a Presto evoking the tolling of bells. In the first part of the ode Britannia and Augusta mourn Cavendish in elegiac solos and a lilting duet, all in C minor. In the second part they move to describing Cavendish’s monument and extolling his successor. Appropriately, the music moves to the major, ending with a lively duet in gavotte rhythm. Hughes was no Dryden, and his verses are embarrassingly trite at times, though he provides some vivid images which Pepusch responds to with some imaginative and accomplished music. In particular, he makes the most of his wind players, with obbligato parts in many of the numbers. The opera orchestra as first formed was quite large (apparently 5-5-2-3-2 strings with 2 oboes, 3 bassoons, trumpet and continuo), though the ode works well with just two wind players (oboes doubling recorders), four strings, and a keyboard.

Peter Holman,
Colchester,
August 2009.

Further reading:
J. Hughes, Poems on Several Occasions, with some Select Essays in Prose, 2 vols. (London, 1735).
Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Theatrical Papers 1706-1715, ed. J. Milhous and R.D. Hume (Carbondale and Edwardsville IL, 1982).
D.F. Cook, ‘The Life and Works of Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752), with Special Reference to his Dramatic Works and Cantatas’, Ph.D. diss (King’s College, University of London, 1982).

© Copyright Peter Holman 2009

sample pages - Pep 4.PDF

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