Court Odes

Book excerpt: John Eccles is today mainly remembered for his theater works, but, as Master of the King’s/Queen’s Music, he was also the principal composer of ceremonial courts odes for William III and Anne, producing some twenty New Year odes and fourteen birthday odes during his thirty-five years in the post—twice as many as Henry Purcell’s output in the same genre. The fact that his odes are so little known today is partly due to how few survive: music is extant for only five odes, three of them incomplete. This volume presents the first complete modern edition of Eccles’s surviving court odes. There is much superb music awaiting discovery here: by the time he wrote his first odes, Eccles was already a seasoned theater composer, and his odes can be equally dramatic and virtuosic; at the same time, they demonstrate confident control both of the choral and orchestral forces at his disposal, and of the works’ large-scale architecture.