Henry Carey (musician)

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Henry Carey (August 27, 1687 – October 5, 1743) was an English composer and librettist. His writings for the stage are important to music historians for their satirical commentaries on London’s fascination with Italian opera in the early 18th century.

Born in Yorkshire, it appears likely that he was illegitimately related to the great Savile family of that area. He was first known in London in 1710 as the editor of a weekly magazine, The Records of Love. His music studies at the time were with John Reading and Thomas Roseingrave, and later from Geminiani, who arrived in London in 1714. He earned his living teaching music and singing both English and Italian works, working for Colley Cibber at the Drury Lane Theater, but his association with the Earl of Oxford, who was involved in a scandal and a charge of High Treason caused him to be barred from working in the theaters for a few years. That changed by 1723, when he became the unofficial composer in residence at Drury Lane, providing music for plays, ballad operas and other stage works.

In 1732 Thomas Arne helped to finance a group of composers, including Lampe, Arne and J.C. Smith, who tried to establish serious opera in English. For these works Carey contributed two librettos, Amelia, set by Lampe, and first performed at the Little Theatre, Haymarket, London, March 13, 1732, and Teraminta, set by Smith, and first performed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, November 20, 1732. Teraminta was also set by Stanley in about 1754. The efforts ultimately failed, but Carey had more success with subsequent burlesques of the same operatic style and conventions. The most successful of these was The Dragon of Wantley, first performed at the Little Theatre, Haymarket, London, on May 10, 1737. This collaboration between Carey and Lampe went on to have an unprecedented first season run of 69 performances at Covent Garden. The piece is a sophisticated and entertaining send-up of the more absurd conventions of Italian opera and the rivalries of the leading castratos and female singers of the day, and includes some playful jibes at Handel oratorios. Departing from Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), it carries the burlesque elements to new lengths by being all-sung, complete with recitatives and da capo arias. It must have been quite a spectacle: Bickham’s The Musical Entertainer (1739) contains the main arias with engravings illustrating the contemporary staging, and it has been revived for modern audiences.

Carey was quite prolific as an English song composer between 1715 and 1740. He published over 250 songs, ranging from simple ballads to Italian styled chamber cantatas. Just as important is the fact that he wrote the lyrics to all but a few of them. He played a significant role in the continuity and development of an indigenous English song style, linking the styles of Purcell and Eccles at the end of the 17th century to those of Arne and Boyce in the mid-18th.

Frequent financial difficulties, the stagnant theater repertoire after 1740, and a lack a commissions drove him to hang himself at his home in Clerkenwell, leaving behind a pregnant widow and three children.

[edit] See also

For more information about Carey's work as an author, see Henry Carey (writer)

[edit] References

  • Fiske, Roger (1980), “Carey, Henry”, in Sadie, Stanley, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 3, London: Macmillan, pp. 779-781 .
  • Gillespie, Norman. "Carey, Henry", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 1 April 2008), grovemusic.com (subscription access).