William Hayes (composer)
William Hayes (* probably January 25, 1708 in Gloucester , † July 27, 1777 in Oxford ) was an English organist and composer .
Life
William Hayes was probably born in Gloucester in January 1708 . The exact birthday is not recorded, but his baptism is documented for January 26th. Not much is known about his youth and his musical training. What is certain is that at the age of nine he was accepted into the choir of Gloucester Cathedral , which at that time was under the direction of Cantor William Hine . It can be assumed that William Hayes received profound musical lessons from him.
After various positions as organist (1729 St. Mary’s Shrewsbury , 1731 Worcester Cathedral , 1734 Magdalen College Oxford ), he was appointed Professor of Music at Oxford University on January 14, 1741, to succeed Richard Goodson .
Six years earlier, on July 8, 1735, Hayes had earned a Bachelor of Music degree . Interestingly, the exam piece that he had to compose to get the title has been preserved. This is the ode When the fair Consort in the Elysian Choir, about the story of Orpheus and Eurydice taken from Greek mythology .
The original title for the first publication states:
- An ode, being part of an exercise perform'd for a Bachelor's degree in musick. [...] composed by William Hayes [...]
On April 14, 1749, William Hayes was awarded the doctorate during the opening ceremonies of the Radcliffe Library Oxford.
His most important musical activities included the establishment of the weekly concert series in the Holywell Music Room (founded in 1748) and the performances of various oratorios by George Frideric Handel, whom he admired (this is how Hayes arranged the first performance of the Messiah in Oxford).
William Hayes died honored in Oxford on July 27, 1777. His son Philip Hayes (1738–1797) was also a composer and his successor as Professor of Music at Oxford.
rating
Over a period of 26 years, William Hayes was the leading musical force in Oxford in his position as Professor of Music and was responsible for numerous important innovations, such as the aforementioned concerts in the Holywell Music Room . Actually, that should be reason enough to take on the extensive compositional legacy of this man (→ see catalog raisonné below) and to bring it back to musical life, but a renaissance of his works has not yet started.
“Hayes' musical style is strongly based on that of George Frideric Handel”, this is how it is formulated in some relevant dictionaries. This is certainly not fundamentally wrong, but it can easily lead to misunderstandings. The “typical” of Handel's music was for the most part a way of composing that was adapted to the musical taste of the time and was also adopted by William Hayes. With that in mind, Hayes' music only has superficial similarities with Handel's. Rather, William Hayes is a child of his time and is by no means unaffected by the musical innovations of the late baroque and pre-classical periods . In his works, baroque, polyphonic writing can be found right next to sentences that are more reminiscent of the sensitive style .
With his prestigious post at Oxford University, William Hayes was not dependent on making money composing. That is the reason why he could afford to subject his works to a creative process that was unusually long for the time. The completion of the Oden The Passions and The Fall of Jericho , for example, took months and years, respectively. And even after the first performances, he still made some changes in the musical text. Compared to Handel, this type of composition appears extremely inefficient.
The Passions
In 1747, the extremely talented, but regrettably unsuccessful English poet William Collins published a collection of poems under the title Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects . The last of the total of 12 odes in this issue is entitled The PASSIONS. An Ode for Music . So it was intended from the outset by the poet to be set to music without, however, having a particular composer in mind.
The layout of this poem is relatively simple and follows the English tradition of the Cäcilienoden . From a musical point of view, however, it posed completely new challenges for the composer at the time: the translation of human states of mind into music. The so-called program music of the late 17th and early 18th centuries had striking depictions of nature, some of which were even provided with a description (such as Friedrich Funcke , Danck- and Denck-Mahl about […] the clap of thunder […] 1666 on p Johannis in Lüneburg [...] or Telemann's song poem in spring ), but the musical implementation of passions was something unprecedented.
Collins' ode is structured as follows:
- Introduction by a narrator
- Fear (fear)
- Anger (anger)
- Despair (despair)
- Hope (Hope)
- Revenge (revenge)
- Jealousy (jealousy)
- Melancholy (melancholy / sadness)
- Chearfulness (happiness / cheerfulness)
- Joy (joy / bliss)
- Final part
William Hayes does not use the original text of the ode for his setting of The Passions, which premiered on July 2, 1750 in the Oxford Theater , but instructs his superior, the Chancellor of Oxford University, to change the ending. In the first print there is the following note:
- NB The Lines which conclude this Poem as it is here set to Music (from P. 161 to the end) were written for the Composer by the Earl of Litchfield Chancellor of the University of Oxford: the latter part of the original Ode not being calculated for musical expressions.
Why exactly Hayes had the text changed is difficult to understand. What is certain, however, is that the ending intended by Collins could very well be set to music, because around 30 years after William Hayes, the Englishman Benjamin Cooke took up the ode and set it to music, too, and in full. In his essay, Markus Marti developed a theory that made it absolutely necessary for Hayes to change the ending, since in the original form all new musical achievements of the time are questioned and the "old" or "old-fashioned" ones at the time Music is sung about as the only blissful. Or maybe it was just a clever move by Hayes. At least it should not be forgotten that his lyricist was also his supervisor, who may well have felt flattered by Hayes' use.
The lyricist William Collins did not find out about Hayes' setting of his poem until after the premiere, and he did not seem to have known that his text had been changed. In a letter dated November 8, 1750, he asked William Hayes to send him a copy of his composition. At the same time he mentions a new ode he wrote “to the music of Greek theater”, which Collins says would be ideal for a university audience, and suggests it to Hayes for setting. William Hayes does not seem to have responded to this letter. The score was not sent, and nothing of Collins' ode "to the music of the Greek theater" has survived apart from a few fragments, which, however, cannot be assigned one hundred percent.
Works
Vocal music
- Twelve arietts or ballads, and two cantatas ( printed score Oxford 1735)
- Vocal and instrumental musick in three parts (printed score Oxford 1742)
- The Fall of Jericho , Ode / Oratorio (manuscript c. 1740–1750)
- Six Cantatas set to Musick (printed score London 1748)
- Peleus and Thetis , Masque (manuscript 1749)
- The Passions , An Ode to Music (manuscript around 1750, printed score published by Philip Hayes around 1800)
- Where shall the Muse , Ode (manuscript 1751)
- Hark! Hark from every tongue , Installation Ode (manuscript 1759)
- O that some pensive Muse , Ode to the Memory of Mr. Handel (manuscript c. 1759)
- Ode Sacred to Masonry in: Social Harmony (edited by T. Hale, printed score London 1763)
- Catches glees and canons , 3 parts ( printed score Oxford 1757, 1765 & 1773)
- A supplement to the catches, glees and canons ( printed score Oxford 1765)
- Sixteen psalms selected from the Revd. Mr. Merrick's new version (printed score London 1773)
- Daughters of Beauty , Commemoration Ode (manuscript 1773)
- Sixteen psalms selected from the Revd. Mr. Merrick's new version (date of origin unknown, printed score London 1773)
- David, Act I , Oratorio (manuscript c. 1774–1777, completed by Philip Hayes)
- Te Deum , manuscript (date of origin unknown)
- The 100 psalm as performed at St. Paul’s (date of origin unknown, printed score London 1790)
- Cathedral Music in score (date of origin unknown, printed score published by Philip Hayes Oxford 1795)
- Harmonia Wiccamica (date of origin unknown, printed score edited by Philip Hayes)
Instrumental music
- 8 Concerti grossi (manuscript)
- Concerto for harpsichord and orchestra (manuscript)
- 2 concertos for organ, strings and basso continuo (manuscript)
- Sonata for oboe, violin and basso continuo (contained in part 2 of the Vocal and Instrumental Musick from 1742)
- 5 sonata for 2 violins and basso continuo (manuscript)
expenditure
- Orpheus and Euridice , edited by C. Stawiarski at Edition Musica Poetica , free download
- The Passions , edited by C. Stawiarski at Edition Musica Poetica (= musical monuments of the early modern period, volume 1)
literature
- Simon Heighes: The Lives and Works of William and Philip Hayes. Dissertation. University of Oxford. Garland 1995.
- Markus Marti: Harrass. William Collins: "The Passions" (An Ode for Music) / The Passions. In: Harrass. Ed. Bruno Oetterli. Vol. 19, Signat (h) ur, Dozwil 2004, pp. 109-119.
- Anthony Rooley: Foreword to the edition of Orpheus and Euridice. Edition Musica Poetica, 2003.
- HO White: The Letters of William Collins. In: Review of English Studies. Vol. 3, No. 9, 1927, pp. 12-21.
Individual evidence
- ↑ published as the third part of his collection vocal and instrumental music (London 1742)
- ↑ The concert series in the Holywell Music Room still exists today
- ↑ Hayes's musical style is much indebted to Handel Quote from The New Grove, Dictionary of Music and Musicians , Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, Oxford University Press 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3 & ISBN 1-56159-239- 0
- ↑ Markus Marti (see literature list)
- ↑ HO White (see literature list)
Web links
- Literature by and about William Hayes in the catalog of the German National Library
- Sheet music and audio files by William Hayes (composer) in the International Music Score Library Project
- William Collins, original text "The Passions"
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hayes, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around January 25, 1708 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gloucester |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 27, 1777 |
| Place of death | Oxford |