Complete Songs (with the Music in Macbeth ) (review)

Too little is known about English theater music in the immediate decades after Henry Purcell's death—or, rather, insufficient musicological energies have been applied to this topic. And this is something of a shame, for the music that is available in modern edition or facsimile by Daniel Purcell, Jeremiah Clarke, John Eccles, and a few others makes a compelling case for a musically rich and imaginative theater scene in early-eighteenth-century London. Not all the music is first rate, but many of the examples I have seen (alas, rarely heard) appear to be the effective efforts of well-skilled musical dramatists, who of course learned their craft directly or indirectly from the masterful Henry Purcell. The singer-composer Richard Leveridge (1670- 1758), who emerged on the London scene in the late 1690s and maintained his position as a significant man of the theater for over fifty years, occupies a perhaps more peripheral position as a composer than the trio named above, although his longevity as a great bass vocalist and general theatrical influence certainly merits attention.