John Blow (baptised 23 February 1649 – 1 October 1708) was an English composer and organist of the

Baroque period The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

. Appointed organist of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

in late 1668,John Blow
Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 30 December 2019. his pupils included

William Croft William Croft (baptised 30 December 1678 – 14 August 1727) was an English composer and organist. Life Croft was born at the Manor House, Nether Ettington, Warwickshire. He was educated at the Chapel Royal under the instruction of John Blow ...

Jeremiah Clarke Jeremiah Clarke (c. 1674 – 1 December 1707) was an English baroque composer and organist, best known for his ''Trumpet Voluntary,'' a popular piece often played at wedding ceremonies or commencement ceremonies. Biography The exact date of Cla ...

and Henry Purcell. In 1685 he was named a private musician to James II. His only stage composition, '' Venus and Adonis'' (ca. 1680–1687), is thought to have influenced Henry Purcell's later opera ''

Dido and Aeneas ''Dido and Aeneas'' (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was com ...

''. In 1687, he became choirmaster at St Paul's Cathedral, where many of his pieces were performed. In 1699 he was appointed to the newly created post of Composer to the Chapel Royal.

Early life and education

Blow was probably born in the village of Collingham in Nottinghamshire. The parish registers at Newark record the baptisms of Blow and of his brother and sister, the marriage of his parents, and the burial of his father. The register of Lambeth degrees notes that in 1677, on taking his doctorate, Blow said that his birthplace was 'the faithful borough of Newark'. As he was baptised on 23 February 1649, he was likely born only a short while before. As a boy, he was selected as a chorister of the Chapel Royal,Dennis Shrock and distinguished himself by his proficiency in music. Blow composed several anthems at an unusually early age, including ''Lord, Thou hast been our refuge'', ''Lord, rebuke me not'' and the so-called "club anthem", ''I will always give thanks'', the last in collaboration with

Pelham Humfrey Pelham Humfrey (''Humphrey, Humphrys'') (1647 in London – 14 July 1674 in Windsor) was an English composer. He was the first of the new generation of English composers at the beginning of the Restoration to rise to prominence. Life and career ...

and William Turner, either in honour of a victory over the Dutch in 1665, or more probably simply to commemorate the friendly intercourse of the three choristers.

Early career

In 1668, he was an organist at

. He composed a two-part setting of Robert Herrick's "Goe, perjur'd man", written at the request of Charles II to imitate Giacomo Carissimi's "Dite, o cieli". In 1674, he was made a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and

Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal The Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal was the choirmaster of the Chapel Royal of England. They were responsible for the musical direction of the choir, which consisted of the Gentlemen of the Chapel and Children of the Chapel. In some per ...

Marriage and family

In September 1673, Blow married Elizabeth Braddock. She died in childbirth ten years later. Two of his sons died, but there were also three daughters, who survived him.

Advance to court

Blow, who by 1678 was a doctor of music, was named in 1685 one of the private musicians of James II. Between 1680 and 1687, he wrote his only stage composition of which any record survives, the

Masque The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masq ...

for the entertainment of the King, '' Venus and Adonis''. In this, Mary Davis played the part of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

Lady Mary Tudor Lady Mary Tudor, Countess of Derwentwater (16 October 1673 – 5 November 1726) was an actress and natural daughter of King Charles II of England by his mistress, Mary "Moll" Davies, an actress and singer. Biography Early life and title M ...

, her daughter by Charles II, appeared as Cupid. In 1687, Blow became choirmaster (or Master of the Choristers) at St Paul's Cathedral. In 1690 he built a house for himself in

Hampton Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia *Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria Canada * Hampton, New Brunswick *Ha ...

. (Blow also owned eight other houses in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey). The Hampton house was demolished in 1799. It was on the site of the present-day house known as Beveree in the High Street. In 1695 he was elected organist of

St Margaret's, Westminster The Church of St Margaret, Westminster Abbey, is in the grounds of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square, London, England. It is dedicated to Margaret of Antioch, and forms part of a single World Heritage Site with the Palace of Westminster ...

, and is said to have resumed his post as organist of Westminster Abbey, from which in 1679 he had retired or been dismissed to make way for Purcell. In 1700, he was appointed to the newly created post of Composer to the Chapel Royal. Blow died on 1 October 1708 aged 59 at his house in Broad Sanctuary. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Music

Blow wrote fourteen

services Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...

and 30 odes for royal celebrations, 50 secular song-like pieces and more than a hundred anthems. In addition to purely ecclesiastical music and his relatively well-known masque '' Venus and Adonis'', Blow's works include ''Great sir, the joy of all our hearts'', an

ode An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...

for New Year's Day 1682, similar compositions for 1683, 1686, 1687, 1688, 1689, 1693 (?), 1694 and 1700; odes, and the like, for the celebration of St Cecilia's Day for 1684, 1691, 1695 and 1700; for the coronation of James II, two anthems, ''Behold, O God, our Defender'' and ''God spake sometime in visions''; some harpsichord pieces for the second part of

Henry Playford Henry Playford (1657 – c. 1707) was an English music publisher, the younger son and only known surviving child of John Playford, with whom he entered business. His father died around 1686, but for some time before that he was in poor health. Hen ...

's ''Musick's handmaid'' (1689); ''Epicedium for Queen Mary'' (1695) and ''Ode on the Death of Purcell'' (1696). In 1700 he published his ''Amphion Anglicus'', a collection of pieces of music for one, two, three and four voices, with a

figured bass Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsi ...

accompaniment. This includes a setting for voice and continuo of the poem '' The Self Banished'' by

Edmund Waller Edmund Waller, FRS (3 March 1606 – 21 October 1687) was an English poet and politician who was Member of Parliament for various constituencies between 1624 and 1687, and one of the longest serving members of the English House of Commons. S ...

Legacy and honours

*Commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra,

Arthur Bliss Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor. Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he qu ...

composed ''Meditations on a Theme by John Blow'' in 1955 based on Blow's verse anthem "The Lord is my Shepherd". *The

tercentenary An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded in a previous year, and may also refer to the commemoration or celebration of that event. The word was first used for Catholic feasts to commemorate saints. ...

of his death was marked by BBC Radio 3 and Westminster Abbey: the weekly broadcast of

choral evensong Evensong is a church service traditionally held near sunset focused on singing psalms and other biblical canticles. In origin, it is identical to the canonical hour of vespers. Old English speakers translated the Latin word as , which beca ...

was made by the choir of Westminster Abbey, live from the Abbey, and consisted of music mostly by him, and by his near contemporaries.Choral Evensong from Westminster Abbey on the anniversary of the death of John Blow
BBC Radio 3. Retrieved 1 October 2008.

References

External links

* * *John Blow MIDI file "Fair Celia
Tony Catalano's Classical Guitar MIDI Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blow, John 1649 births 1708 deaths 17th-century English composers 18th-century keyboardists 18th-century English people English classical composers English male classical composers English Baroque composers English classical organists British male organists Cathedral organists Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal Masters of the Children of the Chapel Royal Children of the Chapel Royal People from Newark-on-Trent Burials at Westminster Abbey 17th-century male musicians Male classical organists