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Composer Profile: William Croft |
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At the evening mass on Ascension Day (May 21), the choir will sing as the offertory anthem “God is gone up” by William Croft (1678-1727). It is decidedly the best known anthem of its composer, highly admired by such authorities as William Boyce (1711-1779), who included it in the second volume of his anthology Cathedral Music (1768), and the noted music historian and critic Charles Burney (1726-1814). The text comes from Psalm 47, which is traditionally associated with the Ascension. Even better known to most churchgoers are his hymn tunes St. Anne (“O God, our help in ages past”) and Hanover (“O worship the King”), though the attribution of the latter to Croft is questioned.
As a boy, Croft was a chorister in the Chapel Royal under the direction of his mentor John Blow (1649-1708). He was also profoundly influenced by Henry Purcell (1659-1695). From about 1700, Croft was organist at St. Anne’s Church, Soho in London, and around the same time resumed his association with the Chapel Royal, first as a Gentleman Extraordinary, serving occasionally as organist with Jeremiah Clarke (c1674-1707). They succeeded jointly to the organistship on the death of Francis Pigott in 1704, and Croft assumed the full position on Clarke’s death. By that time he was assisting Blow as composer, and on the elder musician’s death Croft succeeded him not only at the Chapel Royal, but as organist of Westminster Abbey as well. He resigned from St. Anne’s, Soho in 1712. In July of 1713 he earned the degree of D.Mus. from Oxford University.
I find Croft’s music fascinating in that he seems to have one foot in the 17th century and one in the 18th. He fully assimilated the style of Restoration church music that would have been the standard fare of the Chapel Royal choir during his boyhood. At the same time, one can hear the beginnings of the early Georgian style associated with composers like Maurice Greene (1696-1755) and George Frideric Handel. Croft was clearly a transitional figure.
The anthem “God is gone up” (c1706) provides a good illustration of this point. The piece falls into three short movements. The outer movements are for full choir and could almost have been written by Handel. At Good Shepherd we sometimes sing only the first movement, which can stand alone as an anthem in its own right. The middle movement is for six solo voices with organ and looks back stylistically to the anthems of the earlier generation. It could almost have been written by Purcell.
Croft was held in high regard by his contemporaries and by musicians of succeeding generations, as witness the following remarks from around 1750 by William Hayes (1708-1777), Heather Professor of Music at Oxford University:
“Doctor Croft, who very successfully studied the Ancients, and his great Predecessor Purcell, by happily uniting their various Excellencies, hath left behind him a noble Fund of Music, properly adapted to the most sublime Purposes of Devotion. ... That he has discharged himself properly [in his anthems] ... is sufficiently evident from the universal Approbation which they are performed with, in most Parts of England and the Principal Choirs in Ireland: for it must be observed, in Justice to his Memory, that although he kept in view the Solemnity and Gravity of the Old Masters, yet he has thrown in many new Lights, which have added great Lustre to that Solemnity.”
--WJG |
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