AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

Personalities | John Blow | Early Baroque | Classical

1649–1708
English composer

Blow held various court appointments and served as the first Composer of the Chapel Royal (1700). His greatest gifts lay in the composition of vocal music, notably anthems and services for the church. Among the finest of his verse anthems is ‘God spake sometime in visions’, for the coronation of James II (1685). In this piece, his individual approach to harmony and modulation is a distinctive feature. As well as organ voluntaries and miscellaneous keyboard compositions, Blow wrote a single stage work, Venus and Adonis. Incorporating features of French musical drama and the Italian chamber cantata, it was a significant precursor to Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. He also composed an ode on the death of Purcell, whom he succeeded as organist of Westminster Abbey in 1695.

Recommended Recording:
Venus and Adonis, soloists, New London Consort (dir) Philip Pickett (L’Oiseau-Lyre)

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

AUTHORITATIVE

An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...

CURATED

Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.