William Boyce (1711 â?? 1779) was an English composer
and organist. Like Beethoven later on, he became deaf
but continued to compose. He knew Handel, Arne, Gluck,
Bach, Abel, and a very young Mozart, all of whom
respected his work. Boyce was born in London, at
Joiners Hall, then in Lower Thames Street, to John
Boyce, at the time a joiner and cabinet-maker, and
beadle of the Worshipful Company of Joiners and
Ceilers, and his wife Elizabeth Cordwell. He was
baptised on 11 September 1711 and was a...(+)
William Boyce (1711 â?? 1779) was an English composer
and organist. Like Beethoven later on, he became deaf
but continued to compose. He knew Handel, Arne, Gluck,
Bach, Abel, and a very young Mozart, all of whom
respected his work. Boyce was born in London, at
Joiners Hall, then in Lower Thames Street, to John
Boyce, at the time a joiner and cabinet-maker, and
beadle of the Worshipful Company of Joiners and
Ceilers, and his wife Elizabeth Cordwell. He was
baptised on 11 September 1711 and was admitted by his
father as a choirboy at St Paul's Cathedral in 1719.
After his voice broke in 1727, he studied music with
Maurice Greene.
His work as a composer began in the 1730s, writing
songs for Vauxhall Gardens. In 1736 he was named as
composer to the Chapel Royal and wrote the oratorio
David's Lamentation over Saul and Jonathan. He was
engaged as conductor to the Three Choirs Festival in
1737; many of his works, including the Worcester
Overture (today known as his Symphony no. 8), will have
been premiered at the Festival over the succeeding
years. The 1740s saw his opera Peleus and Thetis, the
serenata Solomon, and his Secular Masque, to a libretto
by John Dryden. In 1749 he wrote an ode and the anthem
O be joyful to celebrate the installation of the Duke
of Newcastle as Chancellor of Cambridge University, and
was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music. In 1747 he
had published his first purely instrumental
composition, a set of "Twelve Sontas for Two Violins
and a Bass" and these proved popular. Charles Burney
wrote that they were "not only in constant use, as
Chamber music, in private concerts ... but in our
theatres, as act-tunes [i.e. intermezzi] and public
gardens, as favourite pieces, during many years."
Boyce was largely forgotten after his death and he
remains a little-performed composer today, although a
number of his pieces were rediscovered in the 1930s and
Constant Lambert edited and sometimes conducted his
works. Lambert had already launched the early stages of
the modern Boyce revival in 1928, when he published the
first modern edition of the Eight Symphonies (Bartlett
and Bruce 2001). The great exception to this neglect
was his church music, which was edited after his death
by Philip Hayes and published in two large volumes,
Fifteen Anthems by Dr Boyce in 1780 and A Collection of
Anthems and a Short Service in 1790 (Bartlett 2003,
54).
Church choral music saw a revival in the 1830s and
1840s, under the influences of the Tractarians, the
Cambridge Camden Society, and the financial changes
carried out under the "Dean and Chapter Act" (the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840). A new edition
of Boyce's works as Cathedral Music, edited by Joseph
Warren, appeared in 1849.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyce_(composer)
)
Although originally composed for Chorus (SSATB), I
created this arrangement of "O where shall wisdom be
found?" for Winds (Flute, Oboe, French Horn & Bassoon)
& Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION