RICHARD GOODSON THE ELDER'S ODE 'JANUS, DID EVER TO THY SIGHT': EVIDENCE OF COMPOSITIONAL PROCEDURES IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract

ON 13 August 1704 the Duke of Marlborough, leading troops from the English, Dutch, Hanoverian and Prussian armies, fought a decisive battle against the French and Bavarians around a small village named Blindheim (Blenheim) on the banks of the River Danube. On the instructions of Queen Anne, Marlborough had been planning throughout the year a campaign against the French aimed at curbing the power of Louis XIV; his spectacular victory at the Battle of Blenheim succeeded in preventing Louis from invading Holland or Austria and, according to Henry Davenant, effectively 'put an end to the war in the Empire'.' To mark the victory, Anne ordered a national thanksgiving for 7 September, on which date she took part in a service at St Paul's Cathedral. The celebrations continued into the New Year, and Marlborough himself, who had not arrived back in England until 14 December, led a triumphant procession through London on 3 January. We cannot tell quite to what extent the English population as a whole was affected by the victory at Blenheim, but the event was commemorated in a relatively large number of contemporary literary and other works.2 Among those which survive is a full score of music for an ode written, according to an annotation on its cover, 'for the [Sheldonian] Theatre Oxon after the victory at Blenheim', now in the library of Christ Church, Oxford (in the guard-book MS Mus. 618, ff. 26-34). Entitled 'Janus, did ever to thy sight', it recounts the events both of the battle itself and of Admiral Sir George Rooke's victory over the French off Malaga, which culminated in his taking of Gibraltar on 4 August 1704. The music is quite clearly in the hand of Richard Goodson the elder (c. 1655-1718), Heather Professor of Music at Oxford from July 1682 until his death, and organist of Christ Church from 1692 (in fact, the manuscript contains five odes by him, plus other music).3 The text was also published separately as part of a collection of poetry by Edmund Smith in Samuel Johnson's The Works of the English Poets.4 Smith (1672-1710) went up to Christ Church in June 1688 at the age of sixteen, took his MA in July 1696, and remained in the college, presumably as a 'Student' (i.e., Fellow), until he was expelled by the Dean and Chapter on 20 December 1705 after consistently