Micrologus; Beggars, Ballads, and Borrowings

84-02 BEGGARS, BALLADS, AND BORROWINGS

On January 29, 1728, there opened a production at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in London which was to sound the death-knell of Italian opera in England. It was called: The Beggar's Opera, and it was by the popular English poet, John Gay. Gay's work was of a type we refer to as the ballad opera—shunning the Italian language and the use of recitative in favor of action plots, fast-spoken dialogue, and songs which borrowed popular tunes and set them to new words. The Beggar's Opera was not the first ballad opera, but it was the best.

Its fame at the time rested partly on the vividness of its characters and plot, partly on the successful integration and sometimes parody of well-known songs, and partly on the strength of its statement as political satire. The two main protagonists are underworld enemies—the head of an organized gang and a dashing highwayman. They are shown to live by a code of ethics similar to that of politicians—a parallel that is drawn explicitly in Act I, Scene I. In fact, it was obvious to all the world that the chief object of the satire was the corrupt Prime Minister, Robert Walpole. Walpole was at opening night and must have received quite a shock to see himself parodied so effectively. His retaliation was to ban Beggar's Opera II (actually it was called Polly) before it was even produced. But there was nothing he could do to stifle the success of the original Beggar's Opera. In four and a half months it packed the house sixty-two times.

Among the most famous of the musical works borrowed by Gay for his masterwork is the ballad "Greensleeves." Here it is as a ballad, sung by tenor Paul Elliott with the Broadside Band, directed by Jeremy Barlow.

[MUSIC]

Now for Gay's version. Originally he had intended that the actors sing the songs in The Beggar's Opera with no musical accompaniment at all. But for some reason, and apparently at the last minute, the theatre's music director was brought in to write bass lines to accompany the songs. Perhaps the texture seemed too sparse, or perhaps the singers needed help. J. C. Pepusch was a German immigrant and may have been unfamiliar with the traditional English ballad repertory, or he may have been in a hurry. At any rate. he provided some of the tunes with untraditional bass melodies and this version of “Greensleeves" is a prime example.

Gay's words to this song contain the heart of his satire: "but gold from law can take out the sting." The “Tyburn tree" referred to is the infamous gallows at Tyburn. The character singing is the highwayman, MacHeath, and the singer, once again, is Paul Elliott.

[MUSIC: "Since laws were made for every degree" from The Beggar's Opera]

Many of the Scottish ballads which Gay borrowed he got from a collection called Orpheus Caledonius (the Scottish Orpheus). which was published in 1725. This beautiful example, “Oh the Broom,” had been around for about 100 years before that. It is sung here by Patrizia Kwella.

[MUSIC]

That tune must have been familiar to the English public as a country dance, too, since it appeared in no less than fourteen editions of Playford's Country Dance collection over a 60-year span. Here it is in Playford's version in a performance by the Broadside Band, directed by Jeremy Barlow.

[MUSIC]

Gay uses this lovely tune at the end of Act 1 for the farewell between MacHeath and Polly, his love, and daughter of his enemy, Peachum. Gay's stage direction calls for it to be sung with the lovers "parting and looking back at each other with fondness, he at one door, she at the other." MacHeath's metaphor about the miser parting with his money must be tongue-in-cheek. Patrizia Kwella and Paul Elliott singing the parting song of MacHeath and Polly.

[MUSIC]

Another popular ballad that appears in The Beggars Opera is known to us in its earliest form as "Stingo, or the Oil of Barley,” once more from John Playford's Country Dance collection.

[MUSIC: The Broadside Band playing the 17th century country dance, "Stingo, or the Oil of Barley." The "Oil of Barley,” by the way, would have been understood as strong ale.]

Toward the end of the 17th century, that tune became known by the name "Cold and Raw" after it was set to words by that durable song-monger, Thomas D'Urfey. For about 40 years. D’Urfey was purveyor of songs to the English court and public. Just a few years before The Beggar's Opera, appeared a retrospective six-volume edition of his songs entitled Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. It was from this collection that Gay drew many of the tunes for The Beggar's Opera.

"Cold and Raw,” in fact, was rather a celebrated song because of its association with the late Queen Mary. The 18th century music historian Sir John Hawkins described a scene in which the composer Henry Purcell and the singer Arabella Hunt were performing some of Purcell's songs for the Queen:

“At length the queen beginning to grow tired, asked Mrs. Hunt if she could not sing the old Scots ballad "Cold and Raw." Mrs. Hunt answered yes, and sang it to her lute. Purcell was all the while sitting at the harpsichord unemployed, and not a little nettled at the queen's preference of a vulgar ballad to his music; but seeing her majesty delighted with this tune, he determined that she should hear it upon another occasion.”

In 1692, Purcell used "Cold and Raw" in his "Birthday Ode for Queen Mary." Like so many of the songs in D’Urfey's collection, "Cold and Raw" is a little bit off-color. I suppose the modern equivalent would be a story about a traveling salesman and a farmer's daughter.

[MUSIC: "Cold and Raw"]

Gay uses this tune in The Beggar's Opera for a song about the imagined handsome appearance of a man on the way to the gallows. Here, once again. is Patrizia Kwella.

[MUSIC: "If any wench Venus's girdle wear"]

I mentioned that Henry Purcell had also borrowed that melody for one of his "Odes to Queen Mary." Purcell was still an influential musical figure in the late 1720s, although he had been dead for over 30 years. So it is not surprising to find some original compositions by the so-called "British Orpheus" among the borrowings in The Beggar's Opera. This next song, "What shall I do to show how much I love her,” is from Purcell’s semi-opera Dioclesian. It is followed by The Beggar's Opera version, "Virgins are like the fair flower in its luster."

[MUSIC]

For all the damage The Beggar's Opera did to the success of serious opera in England, nothing can have galled George Frideric Handel, the leading composer in that style, more than Gay's borrowing of this next piece.

In 1707, soon after his arrival in London, John Gay took a job as secretary to a writer by the name of Aaron Hill. It was Hill who just three years later provided Handel with the libretto to what was to be the composer's first London opera, Rinaldo.

From Handel 's Rinaldo, John Gay lifted the grand ceremonial march of the final act and made it serve for a chorus of ruffians as they gleefully anticipated the spoils of the evening.

One contemporary chronicler relates that on opening night the audience really did not at first know what to make of the production. But when this number came along, the parody was so perfect that the ice was broken and the audience plunged enthusiastically into unselfconscious enjoyment.

We will hear first Handel's version from Rinaldo, performed by La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy, directed by Jean-Claude Malgoire, and then The Beggar's Opera version, "Let us take the road,” from an historic 1962 recording directed by Max Goberman.

[MUSIC]

I should mention that the instrumentation in that performance is a speculative arrangement by Goberman, based on the fact that the fiddles and oboes were called for in Pepusch's overture. Those instruments are not mentioned anywhere else, however, and Pepusch printed only basso continuo parts with the songs, so we are not completely certain of the intended accompaniment.

I should mention also that Handel apparently did not bear a grudge for having his piece purloined and put to such devastating use. In 1731, just three years after The Beggar's Opera, he revived his own masque Acis and Galatea, perhaps to test the waters for theatrical productions in English. His librettist for that work was none other than the author of opera's downfall, John Gay.