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Thomas Weelkes ~ O Lord, grant the King a long life (OUP 1936)

This choral edition, part of the Fullscore Facsimile Folios series, is a scanned version (ie NOT re-engraved) of the 1936 Oxford University Press edition of the anthem O Lord, grant the King a long life. During the lifetime of the UK's longest-serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, it may have gathered a little dust at the back of choral libraries. O Lord, grant the King a long life was sung at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla at Westminster Abbey, London in May 2023.


How to distinguish this edition from other arrangements currently available at IMSLP & CPDL etc:

It is set in the key of E maj , in 6 (or 7) parts SSAATB(B), the bass voices only splitting (optionally) into two for the last three of the seven pages. Unfortunately, the editorial marks could not be erased. The highest note for the sopranos is F sharp 5; the first soprano part starts on B4. The first note of the piece is E3 for the basses. All other voice parts encompass only their usual ranges. See the two preview pages.


Here's a recording of the anthem (note: sung in E ): Spotify. [Links open new browser tabs]

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Thomas Weelkes is considered among the most important of the 'serious' English Renaissance madrigalists of the heyday period 1588 to 1627. He published four volumes of madrigals between 1597 and 1608, as well as church music that includes anthems and service settings that are still popular today in the Anglican tradition. At the end of 1598, probably aged 22, Weelkes was appointed organist at Winchester College, where he remained for two or three years. He obtained his degree in Music from New College, Oxford in 1602, and then moved (as a feted composer already of three books of madrigals) to become organist and informator choristarum (instructor of the choristers) at Chichester Cathedral between late 1601 and 1602. Drink seems to have got the better of him, but he was not the only disorderly member of the cathedral establishment, although in due course he would become its most celebrated.

 

From Thomas Weelkes: A Biographical and Critical Study by David Brown (1969):

 

The music of Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), one of the boldest and most individual of the Elizabethan madrigal-composers, was characterized by youthful enthusiasm and vivid imagination and - like that of the great sixteenth-century Italian madrigalists who influenced him - by the use of chromaticism and dissonance. The virility, breadth, and powerful imagery of his music make him a major figure, but, by an ironical twist of fate, his career was to fall short of his gifts and end in a tragic decline. Unfortunately, no letters and no certain musical autographs of Weelkes have survived; thus, as Gustav Reese put it, 'Trying to trace his biography is like proceeding from complete darkness into twilight.' 'The one thing that is really definite about him,' writes David Brown, 'is his surviving music- - at its best thoroughly positive, clear-headed, imposing and imaginative.' Most of the documentary evidence tells only of his shortcomings - for example, that he was expelled from his position as organist of Chichester Cathedral because 'he hath been, and is noted and famed for a common drunkard and a notorious swearer and blasphemer.' Nothing definitive is known about Weelkes' origins, his musical education or attitudes, the environment in which he lived and worked, or the circumstances surrounding the creation of any of his music.

 

It is not surprising, therefore, that, until now (1969), no full-length study of Weelkes and his music was ever published. Besides presenting new biographical material, David Brown analyzes in detail Weelkes' music, which includes not only some of the finest madrigals in the literature but also the impressive church anthems and the Services - particularly the ninth, in which Weelkes' crossing of the polyphonic manner of the Renaissance style with the magnificent extroversion of the Baroque produced perhaps the finest and 'most lastingly impressive experience in the whole range of his music.' Weelkes emerged during a phase of violent musical transition that brought, among with exciting possibilities, the technical and expressive uncertainties that beset a culture in a state of flux. How Weelkes responded creatively to this situation is a dominant theme of Mr. Brown's book. 

 

He suffered the ignominy of being dismissed from his church job after his employers complained that he would 'very often come ... either from the tavern or the alehouse into the choir.' Weelkes died of alcoholism in 1623. He is buried in St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London, where his memorial stone stands.

 

A longer biography is here.

 

See also the Fullscore free download pdf (re-engraved edition) of the madrigal Now let us make a merry greeting, here.

From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of 5 and 6 Parts, apt for the viols and voices, pub. 1600

 

Now let us make a merry greeting

And thank God Cupid for our meeting:

My heart is full of joy and pleasure

Since thou art here, mine only treasure.

Now will we dance and sport and play

And sing a merry roundelay.

 

No recording of the madrigal can be found. This MP3 (click to open link) plays the piece with synthesized brass instruments.

 

This 1967 BBC recording on YouTube, entitled Weelkes and his contemporaries sets the scene.

 

Thomas Weelkes's best-known church choral works include: 

 

 

 

The Oxford Book of English Madrigals includes 11 madrigals by Weelkes.

 

 

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The painting on the cover of this Fullscore publication is of James I of England and Scotland, painted around 1605 by Flemish portrait painter John De Critz the Elder (1551-1642). He held the post of Serjeant Painter to the king from 1603, at first jointly with Leonard Fryer and from 1610 jointly with Robert Peake the Elder.


James was only one year into his reign as King of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales when this portrait was painted. He was a passionate collector and wearer of jewellery. To celebrate and promote his accession to the English throne – the Union of the Crowns (1603) – he commissioned an elaborate jewel, called the ‘Mirror of Great Britain’. The artist has painted the king wearing it as a hat jewel. It combined table-cut diamonds, a great ruby and two large pearls. The pendant drop featured the magnificent 55.2 carat Sancy diamond, a gem which is now in the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris. Source: National Galleries of Scotland


Thomas Weelkes ~ O Lord, grant the King a long life (OUP 1936)

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