William Boyce

So, uh, I think we need some choral music now.

That's something I don't think I've played before, and the composer who doesn't appear very often in this series William Boyce, the great eighteenth-century English composer, a contemporary of Handel.

Um, I'm going to play a chorus from his oratorio or perhaps serenata would be a better term Solomon.

Now, it's not at all an oratorio on the grand scale of Handel's Solomon.

I'm gonna play the chorus "Behold Jerusalem, Behold Thy King," which will give you an idea of the quality of Boyce's music.

It was, uh, originally in the late, uh, 1730s, and was performed the same year, 1741 as Handel's Messiah, so a little bit of comparison there.

William Boyce from the Serenata of Solomon, the chorus "Behold Jerusalem, behold thy king." [singing]The chorus "Behold Jerusalem, behold thy King" from William Boyce's Seranata Solomon.

I think you'll agree it's very Handelian in style.

I read his biography last year in preparation for this album, the Diana McVeigh biography, and, yeah, he does come across as, yeah, a very kind of low-key, humble man, but just was very aware of his... of the potential of putting music out into the world and adding in his own humble way to the kind of lineage of 20th century English composers.

And he was also a massive proponent of other people's music, massively supportive of Ivor Gurney's music you know and because he tragically died so young we've got Finzi to thank for a lot of the output that we're now familiar with of Gurney's and he did a lot of William Boyce's music, going back a couple of centuries or so, he did a lot of orchestral realisations and transcriptions of music that he found of his.

So yeah, he was a very generous, quiet man, but just went about his work very diligently.

And yeah, there's a real earnest spirit to him, I think.