John Bennett (composer)
John Bennett (c. 10 March 1735, Liverpool – September 1784, in London) was an English organist and composer.
Biography
Details of Bennett's life are limited, but it is known that he died in September 1784, after serving as organist at St. Dionis Backchuch Fenchurch in London, for over thirty years. He had been a pupil of Johann Christoph Pepusch.
Like the typical versatile eighteenth-century English musician, he played the organ and the viola, taught the harpsichord, and performed at Drury Lane Theatre as a singer in the chorus and as a dancer. According to Thomas Mortimer's The Universal Director (1763) and the title page of Bennett's own Ten Voluntaries for the Organ or the Harpsichord, he lived at Boswell Court near Queen Square, Bloomsbury (Holborn), and succeeded Charles Burney as organist at St. Dionis-Backchurch, Fenchurch Street (demolished in 1878), in 1752.
An interesting aside for organists is the information provided in the church minutes for July 27, 1749: ". . . that the Salary of Organist be Thirty pounds p. Ann and that he annually chooses. . . .That the person who shall be chosen Organist shall attend in Person twice on every Sunday and on other usual Festivals, and have no Deputy but in case of sickness."[1]
Gwilym Beechey suggested that in 1760 Bennett must have been suffering financial difficulty as he applied for a second organist’s post (with permission from St. Dionis) which he was unsuccessful in gaining. It was common in that period for organists to serve more than one church simultaneously.
Works
Apart from three hymn tunes with figured bass published in Christopher Smart's (1722-1771) edition of metrical psalms[2], the Ten Voluntaries for the Organ or Harpsichord are his only works known to this day; they were published by the composer in 1758, and printed a number of times since. In the last fifty years, various selections from them have printed in collections: H. Diack Johnstone published numbers 9 and 10 in 1966 (Novello, London); Gwilym Beechey published (nos 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 & 10) in 1969, and Diack Johnstone also published 6 of them (nos 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, & 10) in 1988. Selections can be found in CH Trevor's series Early English Organ Music for Manuals (5 vols). A new complete edition of the entire set has been published in 2002, in Cambridge (UK) [reference required as there appears no such publication 2016]. A complete edition can be found on the IMSLP site.
Five copies survive in the British Isles:[1] in the British Library, the Oxford University Faculty Library, the Euing Library at Glasgow University, the Gerald Finzi Collection at St. Andrews University, and the Shaw – Hellier Collection, The Wodehouse near Wombourne (Staffordshire). The copies in the British Library and the collection at Oxford contain the subscription list of no fewer than 227 names including Boyce, Stanley and George Fredrick Handel.
Ornamentation in the Ten Voluntaries
In his Voluntaries, Bennett uses three of the usual keyboard ornaments: the trill (shake), the beat (modern equivalent the lower mordent) and the appoggiatura.
The trill or shake
While the standard interpretation (beginning on the upper note) should always be tried first, alternatives could be used depending upon the context, which involves taking into account both the speed and pitch of adjacent notes. If the music is fast the number of shakes will be reduced, or even converted to a modern-day acciaccatura. The trill (symbol tr) is used extensively in the voluntaries and in some cases includes notation for a turn.
The Beat (modern equivalent to the lower mordent)
For the beat you play the written note and the lower note or half-note, according to the key you are in.[3]
According to Diack Johnstone "this seems generally to be regarded as the exact inversion of the trill, beginning on the note below the principal note. However, several authorities table the beat as beginning on the principal note, and it is impossible to tell from the music which interpretation is intended.".[4][5]
The Appoggiatura This was interpreted the normal way taking half the value for an un-dotted note and two-thirds the value when the note is dotted. These occur frequently in Bennett in semi-quaver runs, in which case they are written out in full.
Whilst it is tempting to think of a particularly English mode of ornamentation, John Caldwell notes that English ornaments owed much to French style.[6] Howard Ferguson notes that English composers cannot have been ignorant of continental practice and that ornaments such as the mordent, whatever terminology English treatises might use, were universal.
References
- ^ a b Beechey G. Ten Eighteenth-century voluntaries [Vol 6 or Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque era] A-R Editions, Madison 1969
- ^ Christopher Smart, A Translation of the Psalms of David, attempted in the spirit of Christianity, and adapted to the divine service by Christopher Smart. (Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Fasts and Festivals of the Church of England.) 1765
- ^ Ferguson H. Keyboard Interpretation: from the 14th to the 19th Century. Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 152
- ^ H.D. Johnstone, 1966 (ed.) Preface to John Stanley: Voluntary in A minor Op.6 No.2 for Organ, Novello, London.
- ^ Ferguson H. Keyboard Interpretation: from the 14th to the 19th Century. Oxford University Press, 1987. [now out of print]
- ^ John Caldwell English Keyboard Music before the 19th Century (pp162-4), Praeger Publishers, 1973
Modern editions
- H.D. Johnstone, (ed.) Preface to John Bennett: Voluntaries IX and X for Organ, Novello, London. 1966.
- H.D. Johnstone, (ed.) Preface to John Bennett: Six Voluntaries for Organ, Novello, London. 1988.
- Mortimer Thomas. The Universal Director; or, the Nobleman and Gentleman’s True Guide to the Masters and Professors of the Liberal and Polite Arts and Sciences. (1763)
External links
- 1735 births
- 1784 deaths
- Classical-period composers
- Composers for pipe organ
- English classical organists
- British male organists
- Pupils of Johann Christoph Pepusch
- 18th-century classical composers
- 18th-century keyboardists
- English male classical composers
- 18th-century British composers
- 18th-century British male musicians