The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

21st February 2009: Paul Robinson – Tenor / Julian Perkins – Harpsichord

In February 1659 a rising young Civil Servant of 27 was out and about. He usually was! Theatre-lover, music connoisseur, playing as hard as he worked with a rather rocky marriage, if there was anything new or interesting, young Samuel Pepys was up for it and this was a special treat. “To Westminster Hall” he tells us, “I met with Mr Locke and Purcell, Master of Music. Here we had a variety of brave Italian and Spanish songs.”

And, July 1660, he’s off again. Organist and preacher might well tremble when Mr Pepys was in church – he had as sharp an ear for a sermon as he had for an anthem. But all went well. “Here I heard very good musique, the first time I remember ever to have heard the organ and singing-men in surplices in all my life.” It would be – this was the Chapel at Whitehall, and the King was enjoying his own again, with Anglican church music bursting into new life.

And the music he would have heard is still fresh and beautiful as ever, so one of our own singing-men left his surplice behind and came to give us a variety of brave songs. [Mr Pepys would have been delighted to have seen the gentlemen so elegant in their tails! He liked to dress in his best, and once turned up at church in his new periwig, thinking the congregation “would stare upon me”, but unfortunately nobody took any notice. It must have been very disappointing!]
We began with three Purcell songs. I was going to say “with Julian Perkins on harpsichord” but he was on almost everything! During the evening he played the organ and the piano as well.
Master of Music Purcell truly was; organist of Westminster Abbey, and in his short life [he died at 36] the composer of ravishing theatre music, church music and music for occasions. When the snakes drop….drop…drop… from Alecto’s head in “Music for A While” you can almost feel them wriggling. Paul and Julian took a subtle, gentle approach which made you listen attentively. Paul’s tenor has a nice nutty brown quality to it – nothing genteel here! “The earth trembled”, dealing with the crucifixion, showed a typical plain Purcell start, with scary organ accompaniment, building in florid phrases. This repertoire suits Paul, and he has a good lower register. He develops the flowering of recitative very well. His ornate “Alleluia” was very stylish.

Julian, playing a Goble harpsichord, much in vogue in the 1960s, then gave us a Purcell suite. Your reviewer is used to hearing Julian at Fenton House, and knew what we’d get – and we got it! Lively pulses, trippingly neat decoration, and an interesting comparison to the vocal music we had just heard. And the melody of the song “There’s not a Swain on the Plain” could be spotted near the end, also set by Purcell. I think My Pepys would have opined as he did in April 1661, “Hear him play of the harpsicon and I find him to be a perfect good musician.”

We now bound forward in time, to a Handel cantata, “Crudel tiranno Amor”. Although the Victorians, and later generations, thought of Handel as a grave adopted Brit who produced all those moving oratorios, he had a career as a man of the theatre, composer of may glorious operas, with one splendid tune after another – the only sure way of keeping an eighteenth century audience quiet. He spent four years in Italy, and as far as Italian music was concerned he certainly knew the score! Surrounded by sulking sopranos, and carping castrati, he had to work hard and fast. One sympathizes with him when one soprano refused to sing the aria he had written, and held her out the window, telling her he would drop her if she didn’t.

She sang. Sadly the whole enterprise went bust in the end.

These cantatas are full of the spirit which informed the operas, and Paul’s crystal-clear Italian was a great asset. The opening aria was one of Handel’s real swingers. Julian was twinkling away on the harpsichord in his usual style. And of course all three arias had the repeats, where you could, and should, decorate like a wedding cake! Paul produced some very nice trills in the slow aria with a rocking accompaniment, with a very creative use of the harpsichord’s registers by Julian. The last joyful, dancing aria saw some elegant runs by Paul and some extra flourishes by Julian at the end.
After the interval we time-travelled again, to a group of songs by Mendelssohn, another composer who died young, aged 38. This showed Julian in a completely new guise, as a piano accompanist, and very impressive he was too. Paul’s German was just as clear as his Italian. I was totally unfamiliar with Mendelssohn’s songs. I felt the shadows of Schubert and Schumann loomed large over his repertoire – in his last two groups of songs, not featured here, six were by his gifted sister Fanny, but this, with great political incorrectness, was never admitted. This group cleverly covered various styles much used in Lieder – spring, greetings, “fairy songs” with scampering elves, the Great Question – do you love me? And a Gondola Song. Germans loved the whole idea of Italy, specially after Goethe wrote up his journey there, and this is not the only example on this theme. Paul passed easily from style to style, making an engaging group.

We now began to turn back the clock. Step forward Julian, with a suite by John Christopher Smith, who was actually German. His day job was amanuensis for Handel, but he produced a lot of work himself, though Handel sometimes pinched his singers when he put on operas. Somehow they remained great friends! This suite was the usual collection of dance tunes. It is gratifying to see how Julian’s playing has matured over the years. These pieces are deceptive – one faux pas and it is very hard for the player to get back on track. Julian was very sure-handed!

And back to Purcell and his teacher John Blow, also organist of Westminster Abbey, but big enough to hand over to his brilliant pupil – and to take up the job again when Purcell died so young. Blow himself wrote over one hundred songs, as well as church music, but it was said he valued sacred music most.

Purcell was known to be clubbable and enjoyed a drink – or two – with the Lay Vicars of the Abbey [what’s changed?] but Blow could also write a lively song. Paul has charm on the platform – something that cannot be taught, and here he pursued – or tried to! – six different ladies. “Is this not a frank age?” says a character in Restoration comedy, and Congreve’s famous words. “Would she could make of a me a saint, or I of her a sinner” – obviously feeling the latter would be much more fun! – was quintessential Restoration verse. From Sylvia, who got thoroughly told off, to Clarona, who didn’t – yet – lay aside her lute, as Julian represented it beautifully, Paul tripped through these charming miniatures till Sabrina’s thousand charms were rather spoilt when “the beauteous idiot spoke”. We’ve all known one of those!

And as Mr Pepys said in May 1667 “Spent the evening mighty well in good music to my great content.”