CE Chichester Cath 29.xi.23 [L]

[daktari]

Greatly enjoyed the tasteful rendition of Give me the wings of faith to rise. The decision to ornament the last verse, not with more remote harmonies, but with a freer organ involvement, presumably by Tim Ravalde, very appropriate. It is a lovely, moving hymn anyway IMO, with the first option in NEH a very successful match of words and music.

[Alison]

Can’t help thinking the St Pauls incident has started something.

[cat]

Well, I only have David Brown's book on Weelkes to go by, but I find the evidence difficult to dismiss. At Bishop Harnsett's visitation in 1613 Weelkes and Thomas Leame, a fellow lay clerk, were charged 'quod fuit et est detectus ... quadam fama publica ebrietatis'. I suppose one could dismiss that as hearsay. In January 1617 Weelkes did get himself dismissed (although somehow he continued, apparently quite unofficially, as a lay clerk and was organist again in 1622). It looks as if the D&C were on a mission to raise the standard of general behaviour in the cathedral, including the standard of singing and there is some implication that Weelkes had not been as attentive to his duties as he should have been. But the charge actually made against him was 'that he hath been, and is noted and famed for a common drunkard and a notorious swearer and blasphemer; his usual oaths are that which is most fearful to name, by the wounds, heart and blood of the Lord.' Weelkes denied it, but failed to provide any evidence to purge himself of the charge and was dismissed. It seems that it was his failure to purge himself that got him sacked, but surely the original charge wasn't completely fictitious. When Harnsett's successor, George Carleton, visited the cathedral in 1619, William Lawes did then paint a very unflattering picture of Weelkes 'who divers times and very often comes so disguised either from the tavern or alehouse into the choir as is much to be lamented, for in these humours he will both curse and swear most dreadfully, and so profane the service of God ... as is most fearful to hear, and to the great amazement of the people present. And though he hath been often times adminished by the late Lord Bishop, the Dean and Chapter to refrain from these humours and reform himself, yet he daily continues the same, and is rather worse than better therein ... I know not any of the choir or other the officers of the Church to be a common drunkard but Mr. Weelkes.' Personal anomosity? Maybe, but surely not smoke without fire.

It's certainly true that drunkeness was a not uncommon failing in those days. There's a particularly colourful account of a lay clerk at St George's Windsor who got himself dismissed in the 1590s for drunkeness and more and I've come across other not dissimilar references.

I think the paper that Keraulophone posted above makes a better case against David Brown's characterisation of Weelkes than I could here. What's troubling is that it was published in 1980 and the points it raises seem to have been largely ignored by subsequent writers over the last several decades, despite no new evidence being brought forward. I guess the attraction of a good story is too hard to resist.

I've put it up here temporarily for those who can't otherwise access it:

https://user.fm/files/v2-84f9ae2f9fde9442579f997e93dd422a/Shepherd-WeelkesBiographical-1980_compressed.pdf

[Vox Humana]

I think the paper that Keraulophone posted above makes a better case against David Brown's characterisation of Weelkes than I could here. What's troubling is that it was published in 1980 and the points it raises seem to have been largely ignored by subsequent writers over the last several decades, despite no new evidence being brought forward. I guess the attraction of a good story is too hard to resist.

I've put it up here temporarily for those who can't otherwise access it:

https://user.fm/files/v2-84f9ae2f9fd...compressed.pdf

Many thanks for that, Cat.

[Keraulophone]

Thanks from me too, cat. An illuminating read of a thorough piece of scholarly detective work which concludes:

“It becomes abundantly clear that it is not possible to bundle Weelkes up into the water-tight category of a progressively declining wastrel and drunkard.”

Personally, having sung Mr Weelkes’s thrilling music for more than fifty years, even had there been any truth in William Lawes’s complaints, I forgave the great composer long ago.

[Pulcinella]

We're singing two of his pieces in our concert tomorrow lunchtime.

Gloria in excelsis
and
Hosanna to the son of David

We've enjoyed learning both this term.

[Keraulophone]

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/1-december/news/uk/bbc-departs-in-peace-after-climate-protesters-disrupt-chichester-evensong