In Tuneful Accord. Trevor Beeson

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СКАЧАТЬ are not of a nature to make them independent respecting money so that they might give their attention to the improvement of the decaying, much degraded musical state of the Church ... the clergy will never move in the matter. They know nothing of their real interests, and consequently the Establishment is going to ruin.

      In 1839, however, the cathedral’s precentor – an office for which Wesley had not the slightest respect – was elevated to the deanery and things began to go badly wrong. He always resented the fact that the precentor chose the music and that his own contribution was limited to attending a Saturday morning chapter meeting at which the forthcoming week’s settings, anthems and hymns were discussed and authorized. But something more serious arose in 1840 when two choristers, with the dean’s permission, went to perform one evening in a local Glee Club. On hearing of this Wesley accosted the boys, one of whom he struck hard blows with his fist on the back, then kicked him on the point of his chin, leaving a mark for several days. The other boy was struck on the side of his face and knocked down with another blow. When he was on the floor Wesley kicked him.

      When the dean and chapter heard of this they summoned him to their presence in the Chapter House where he admitted the truth of the boys’ evidence but argued that he was, as organist, entitled to punish them. The dean and chapter disagreed, said that he was unjustified in inflicting any punishment, deplored his uncontrollable temper and inability to apologize, and decided to suspend him from his duties, without pay, until the chapter’s Christmas audit meeting several weeks hence.

      He was in trouble again the following year when he was reprimanded for taking leave of absence without permission and leaving an 18-year-old pupil to play at the services. The Devon rivers were too strong a temptation for so addicted an angler. Yet, in spite of all his difficulties, the standard of music at Exeter was raised to an unusually high level for the time. The choir was greatly improved. Better service settings and anthems were introduced and Wesley’s own organ playing was by now nationally famous. Large congregations were attracted. But Wesley was not happy and, after he had made a deep impression on the citizens of Leeds with his inaugural organ recital in their newly built parish church, he accepted the invitation of the vicar, Walter Farquhar Hook, to move there as organist. One person who was not sorry to see him leave Exeter was the cathedral’s chapter clerk who had dealt with most of the Wesley problems and described him as ‘the most to be avoided man I ever met with’.

      Hook had gone to Leeds in 1837 and found there a medieval parish church which, although it provided for 1,500 worshippers, soon became too small to accommodate those who wished to attend the Sunday services. He rejected the suggestion that the decaying structure should be restored and enlarged – ‘I loathe it’, he declared, ‘I cannot preach comfortably in it, I cannot make myself heard. The dirt and indecorum distress me.’ So £28,000 was raised and the new cathedral-like church was completed and consecrated in 1841. It was intended that there should be daily choral services; there had, unusually, been a surpliced choir of men and boys in the old church since 1818.

      Wesley was attracted by the enthusiasm for good music he had found in Leeds and also by a salary of £200 p.a. guaranteed for ten years by one of the city’s wealthy residents. The vicar, though not himself a musician, believed that only the best was good enough for the parish church’s worship and he was ready to find the money to make this possible. He and his new organist shared a dislike of plainsong and a determination to use only the new Anglican chants for the psalms. Wesley was soon admired throughout Yorkshire and the parish church became one of the county’s chief centres of music-making.

      His lengthy Morning, Communion and Evening Cathedral Services in E were published in 1845 and demonstrated refreshingly that canticles could provide fitting material for great music. The influence of this proved to be considerable and is now experienced in cathedrals daily in the settings of composers such as Stanford, Wood, Britten and Howells. It also included a preface in which he began what was to become a prolonged onslaught on the lamentable state of cathedral music and the urgency of reform. Later he published an admired book of psalm chants.

      Once again, however, he became restless, quarrelled with his employer, and, having given the opening recital on a new organ in Tavistock Parish Church, toyed with the idea of moving there, tempted again no doubt by the fishing prospects. This proved to be only a brief flirtation and Yorkshire after all was not without attractive rivers. It was while alone on a day’s fishing in the North Riding in December 1847 that he had a serious accident in which he sustained a compound fracture of his left leg. The combination of shock and infection endangered his life for a time and he had to be nursed in The Black Swan at Helmsley for almost six months. During this time he composed his masterpiece miniature anthem ‘Cast me not away’, which included the Psalmist’s plea ‘That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice’, and started to write his A Few Words ... He was left permanently lame, although his organ pedal work was not hampered.

      It was about this time that he applied for the professorship of music at Oxford but, as with some other attempts to obtain a university chair, was passed over. Instead, he accepted in 1849 an invitation to become organist of Winchester Cathedral, aware that the Itchen was one of England’s premier trout streams and that Winchester College would provide an education for his sons. The dean and chapter were pleased to engage him but they were somewhat wary, as his reputation had gone before him, and on his arrival he was summoned to a chapter meeting at which those parts of the Statutes which referred to the duties of the organist were read to him. More than this would be needed, however, to keep him in order and maintain the peace.

      There was ample scope for the employment of Wesley’s gifts and reforming zeal since the Winchester music was in a sorry state. But although he was able to negotiate a good salary (augmented by appointment also as organist of the college, then as the first Professor of Organ at the Royal Academy of Music), and although the dean and chapter found £2,500 to purchase the organ built for the 1851 Great Exhibition, his behaviour was erratic. He was not respectful and often downright discourteous to the canons. Moreover, the choir’s performance was not improving and, in 1857, the chapter ordered an enquiry into the reasons for this. These were not difficult to find: of the 780 choral services held during the previous year, he had been present at only 397. He was now a prima donna who needed a national stage and, when not away from Winchester, was often to be found casting a fly on the Itchen. The organ was left in the hands of a 14-year-old pupil and, through lack of training, the choristers were well below an acceptable standard. Some of the lay clerks were drunkards, others were insolent and rude and sometimes deliberately sang wrong notes. Wesley was admonished for neglect of duty, but this made little difference and further censure was required two years later.

      More constructively, his 16-year-long stay at Winchester was marked by the composition of some good anthems. ‘Ascribe unto the Lord’ (1853), ‘Praise the Lord my soul’ (1861), ‘Give the King Thy judgement, O God’ (for the wedding of the future King Edward VII in 1863) and most notably by the publication of his Twelve Anthems (1853) dedicated to the dean, Thomas Garnier, and considered by many to be the outstanding collection of nineteenth-century church music. ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace’ and ‘Wash me throughly’ are still in constant use – and deservedly, since they have deep spiritual power. Always suspicious of music publishers, whom he believed to cheat him of his dues, Wesley recruited a long list of subscribers. This included most of the eminent names in church music at that time and more or less covered the cost of the many plates required for the printing. Thereafter his creative power declined.

      In 1865 Wesley was asked to serve as an assessor for the appointment of a new organist for Gloucester Cathedral and, at the end of the interviews, startled the dean and chapter with the announcement, ‘Gentlemen, I have decided to accept the post myself.’ The dean explained to a former lay clerk afterwards: ‘Dr. Wesley is fond of fishing and he hears that there is some good fishing to be had about here.’ Another attraction was the Three Choirs Festival and, since this was due to be held at Gloucester that year, he was immediately appointed conductor. This involved responsibility for the organizing of the programme (which he did for another two Festivals СКАЧАТЬ