Welcome to all the pleasures

Welcome to all the pleasures, Z. 339,[lower-alpha 1] is a 1683 composition by Henry Purcell, the first of a series he wrote in honour of the patron saint of music, Saint Cecilia.[1] It was commissioned by an organisation called "The Musical Society" for performance in London on 22nd of November 1683.

Words

Purcell set a text by Christopher Fishburn, a relatively obscure figure who was related to Sir Christopher Wren.[2][3] It begins

Welcome to all the pleasures that delight
Of ev'ry sense the grateful appetite.
Hail, great assembly of Apollo's race.
Hail to this happy place, this musical assembly
That seems to be the arc of universal harmony.

Music

The music is for vocal soloists, chorus and an ensemble of baroque instruments consisting of four-part strings (1st and 2nd violin, viola, cello) and basso continuo. As well as accompanying the singers, the instruments feature in an overture (called "symphony") and ritornelli. The piece takes about 18 minutes to perform.

Movements
  1. Symphony
  2. Verse, chorus & ritornello: "Welcome to all the Pleasures"
  3. Song & ritornello: "Here the deities approve" (one of the best-known numbers)
  4. Verse & ritornello: "While joys celestial their bright souls invade"
  5. Song & chorus: "Then lift up your voices"
  6. Verse & chorus: "Then lift up your voices"
  7. Instrumental interlude
  8. Song & ritornello: "Beauty, thou scene of love"
  9. Song & chorus: "In a consort of voices while instruments play"

Notable performances

The venue of the first performance in 1683 was York Buildings which is regarded as London's first regular concert hall. It was built on land previously occupied by York House.[5]

The piece received its Proms premiere in 1963 when it was conducted by George Malcolm. The soloists were Alfred Deller (countertenor), Wilfred Brown (tenor) and John Shirley-Quirk (baritone).[6]

Publication

The work appeared in print in 1684, the year after its first performance.[7] The publisher was John Playford and the work was printed by his nephew John Playford the Younger. John Playford the Elder was at the end of his career and by this stage had handed most of the running of his business near Temple Church to his son Henry. After his father's death, Henry went on to publish a keyboard arrangement of "Here the deities approve" under the title "A new ground" (a ground bass forms the basis of the piece). It appeared in the compilation "The second part of Musick's handmaid" (1689).

Eulenberg brought out a miniature score in 1964. It was edited by Walter Bergmann.[8]

Selected discography

Commercial recordings are mainly by British conductors, a notable exception is the Belgian Philippe Herreweghe who conducts the Collegium Vocale Gent in a 2007 version.

Versions include:

See also

Notes
  1. "Z" is Franklin B. Zimmerman's catalogue of Purcell's works.

References
  1. From between 1680 and 1695 twenty-four of Purcell’s Odes and Welcome Songs survive: four celebrate St Cecilia’s day. (Odes, Vol. 1 – Royal and Ceremonial Odes. Hyperion Records)
  2. Spink, Ian (2001). "Fishburn, Christopher". Grove Music Online. Retrieved 2018-02-24. (subscription required)
  3. Baine, Rodney M. “Rochester or Fishbourne: A Question of Authorship.” The Review of English Studies, vol. 22, no. 87, 1946, pp. 201–206. Accessed via JSTOR (stable url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/508915)
  4. "Purcell Odes". Gramophone. Retrieved 2017-11-20.
  5. Hugh Arthur Scott. “London's First Concert Room.” Music & Letters, vol. 18, no. 4, 1937, pp. 379–390. (Accessed via JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/727265).
  6. Thu 29 Aug 1963 Royal Albert Hall. Proms performance archive
  7. "Purcell, Henry (1659–1695)", Robert Thompson in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); online ed., ed. David Cannadine, January 2008. Accessed November 18, 2017 (subscription or UK public library membership required).
  8. Zimmerman, Franklin B. Notes, vol. 22, no. 4, 1966, pp. 1311–1312. (Accessed via JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/895232).
  9. Review. The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Jul., 1960), pp. 408-410. (Stable url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/740673. Accessed: 22 September 2019
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