Cambridge Handel Opera Company

Following the success of its performance and CD of John Eccles’ Semele, Cambridge Handel Opera Company continues its alternation of Handel opera production with English music drama, composed in the decade before Handel’s arrival in England, that deserves to be better known.

Between The Way of the World and his libretto for Semele, Congreve wrote the libretto of a one-act masque on the famous classical story of the contest between three goddesses for the award of a golden apple by Paris, prince of Troy—a judgment that led to the Trojan War.

The libretto was itself designed for a contest, a musical one, with cash prizes, handsomely sponsored by a group of aristocrats. John Weldon, organist of New College, Oxford, was the youngest finalist. Unexpectedly, his setting—which improves on Congreve’s libretto—won first place in the ‘Musick Prize’, triumphing over the more conservative submissions by the three older and more experienced finalists, John Eccles, Daniel Purcell and Gottfried Finger.

Weldon had studied with Henry Purcell, and was one of his most talented followers. In The Judgment of Paris he combines elements of Purcell’s style with attractive features of modern Italian opera, a kaleidoscopic variety of forms, vivid instrumental dialogue, bravura coloratura for the soloists, charming choruses (in up to six parts) and not a few flashes of wit, suggesting how successfully English opera could have developed had Italian opera not annexed elite fashion.

 CHOC’s performance of Weldon’s The Judgment of Paris with the Academy of Ancient Music, and in association with Cambridge Early Music, takes place on Saturday 28 October in Trinity College Chapel; information about the performance is available at https://cambridgehandel.org.uk/events/upcoming-events/.

CHOC is grateful to the Faculty of Music for hosting the associated Colloquium as part of its regular Wednesday-evening series. This session will bring together five expert speakers to discuss different aspects of Weldon’s work:

Divine Harmony and ‘Ravishing delight’: Weldon and his Music

Dr Alan Howard

 Alan Howard is Lecturer and Director of Studies in Music at Selwyn College, and Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Music. He is co-editor of OUP journal Early Music, a Purcell Society committee member, and a general editor of The Works of John Eccles. His book Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019, and more recently an article on John Eccles’s Collection of Songs (1704) appeared in the Journal of Musicology (Fall 2023). His critical editions of Eccles’s theatre music for A-R Editions and William Croft’s odes for Musica Britannica are both about to appear in print, and he is currently working on Volume 31 of the Purcell Society Edition of Purcell’s Works, ‘Sacred Songs and Partsongs’.

Weldon’s Singers

Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson

Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson have written extensively on 17th- and 18th-century singers and theatre performers, contributing to musical periodicals and books and to Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. They were Research Associates for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, for which they wrote over 60 articles, and have edited facsimile editions of the Complete Songs of Richard Leveridge and of The Monthly Mask of Vocal Music, 1702–1711.

English Operas or Music Meetings? The Performances of the Judgments of Paris

Prof Peter Holman

Peter Holman, Emeritus Professor at the University of Leeds, has wide interests in English music from about 1550 to 1850, performance practice and the history of instruments and instrumental music. His most recent book, Before the Baton: Musical Direction and Conducting in Stuart and Georgian Britain, was published by Boydell in February 2020. As a performer he is director of The Parley of Instruments, the Suffolk Villages Festival, and Leeds Baroque.

John Weldon: A Surprise Winner?

Julian Perkins (director of the CHOC performance)

Julian Perkins enjoys a busy and varied career as a conductor/director, chamber musician and solo keyboard player. He is Artistic Director of the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Oregon, USA, Artistic Director of Cambridge Handel Opera and Founder Director of the period-instrument ensemble Sounds Baroque. Julian was shortlisted for the 2021 Gramophone Award for his recording of Eccles’s Semele with the Academy of Ancient Music and Cambridge Handel Opera, and in August 2023 his latest solo disc, Handel’s Attick, was Instrumental Choice in BBC Music Magazine.

This Colloquium is expected to last a little longer than those in the regular Faculty series; it is scheduled to finish by around 18:30. Since space is likely to be limited, we would be grateful if those planning to attend could book a free ticket via the following link:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/adh29/t-ojzyydv

Admission without ticket will be subject to space remaining.