John Weldon (1676/77-1736)
The Judgment of Paris, a masque (1701)
Mercury – Thomas Walker (tenor)
Paris – Jonathan Brown (baritone)
Juno – Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano)
Pallas Athene – Kitty Whately (soprano)
Venus – Anna Dennis (soprano)
Attendants on Pallas – Anna Cavaliero (soprano) and Askel Rykkvin (baritone)
Academy of Ancient Music/Julian Perkins
rec. 2023, St. Jude-on-the-Hill, London
Full text included
AAM 046 [75]
In 1700 a prize was offered in ‘The London Gazette’ for setting William Congreve’s masque The Judgment of Paris, with the winner receiving 100 guineas. After a weeding-out process, four composers were selected for a football-style play-off on 3 June 1701 when all four settings were performed. The composers were John Eccles, Daniel Purcell (Henry’s younger brother), the Moravian bass viol player Gottfried Finger and John Weldon with the last named declared winner. Inevitably there were pre- and post-match ructions. The prominent Drury Lane composer Jeremiah Clarke had refused to enter the competition on the grounds that the results were to be judged by the nobility and after the competition Finger complained that he had supposed that it would have been ‘judged by men, and not by boys’ and promptly left the country.
Weldon, at the time organist of New College, Oxford, may not be especially well-known today but it’s thought he was the composer of the semi-opera The Tempest long attributed to Purcell, of whom Weldon had been a student. His unexpected win in the competition didn’t lead to much further operatic work, however, and he became eminent as a composer of sacred music. Yet for all the apparent surprise of an underdog win, Weldon’s work has plenty going for it. He recognised for one thing that Congreve had stinted the chorus and added several of his own invention at musically strategic points and this intervention can be seen in the libretto – the added choruses are italicised – printed in the sumptuous hard-back book in which the disc is housed. Eccles and Purcell, by contrast, went along with Congreve (Finger’s score hasn’t survived). Then there is the question of style. Weldon wrote in a charming, Purcell-influenced Italianate mode and his melodies are straight-forward and hummable. Dramatic pacing is adroit, and the work culminates in a theatrically satisfying way.
The story is a well-known one. Paris, son of Priam of Troy, has to give the golden apple to the ‘brightest eyes’ of the three goddesses before him, Juno, Pallas Athene and Venus. No prizes for guessing the winning goddess and no bonus points for realising that the whole thing brought about the Trojan War. Fortunately for the Whig grandees judging the competition – precisely the kind of people Jeremiah Clarke disliked – Congreve restricted himself to matters of artifice, seduction, lively pacing and the like. It’s to these many commendable virtues that Weldon responded and they’re reflected in this vivacious and colourful recording.
Despite the appellation of ‘masque’ there is no dancing in a work that is largely static. Weldon’s scoring is discreet and quite modest though there is in the opening Sonata and scattered throughout a role for the solo trumpet, a man who must have possessed quite some chops as well as plenty of stamina. It’s played memorably well here by David Blackadder, the Baroque virtuoso de nos jours. There are also splendid shadowing opportunities for the oboes and some independence both for them and for the flute/recorder and bassoon. The singers are in every way suited to their roles. Thomas Walker as Mercury sets the piece in motion with stentorian command and Jonathan Brown as Paris sports a rich baritone. Their duet in Happy thou of human race is cut from decidedly Purcellian-Italianate cloth.
Julian Perkins and the AAM’s recording of Eccles’ c.1706 Semele was an outstanding one, and also had a Congreve libretto, and featured three of the singers who appear in in this latest release, namely Anna Dennis, Helen Charlston and Jonathan Brown. The goddesses make for a fruitfully contrasting trio. Juno is Helen Charlston, characteristically fearless and fulsome and more than a little fearsome too in her recitative Saturnia, Wife of Thund’ring Jove, am I. Kitty Whately is Pallas Athene and she announces herself with quick vibrato in This way Mortal bend thy eyes and is duly martial in her aria Hark, Hark! the glorious Voice of War accompanied by Blackadder and Benedict Hoffnung’s timpani. Appropriately, Weldon gives Anna Dennis’ Venus the warmest, most seductive music and her succession of arias, often accompanied by the winds as the work reaches its apex, are delectable. Dennis’ sensitive singing of Far from thee be anxious care is especially noteworthy. Appropriately the chorus turns serious in One only Joy Mankind can know after which Venus takes renewed opportunities for brief, crisp insinuating arias. Paris’ I yield, O take the Prize is inevitable and the grand chorus Hither all ye Graces wraps it up. As Pallas Athene’s attendants, Anna Cavaliero and Askel Rykkvin take their roles well.
Is this as theatrically convincing a work as Eccles’ Semele? No, I don’t think so but it does provide 75 minutes of vivacious and engaging music. The Academy of Ancient Music play with colour, commitment and warmth under the direction of the ever-astute Julian Perkins and they’ve been very well recorded in St. Jude-on-the-Hill, London. The book is sumptuously embellished with portraits, documents and reproductions and features learned essays couched in readable style.
Jonathan Woolf
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