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By Estelle Murphy
My interest in John Eccles (ca. 1668–1735) began with my MPhil research on his court odes. Eccles began his career in London’s theaters around 1690, composing for the United Company at Drury Lane Theater, and then, when the company broke up in 1695, moved with Thomas Betterton to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The songs he composed were enormously popular, and he quickly became one of London’s best-known theater composers. He was appointed to a position as a violinist in the king’s band in 1696 and was made Master of the King’s Musick in 1700; in this position he continued to compose for the theater. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Eccles’s approach to the songs in his court odes echoed the style he used for his theater songs, and both types appeared in print as single sheets and alongside one another in collections.
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January 18, 2017Read More
By Amanda Eubanks Winkler
John Eccles was one of the most popular composers working for the Restoration-era London stage, second only to Henry Purcell, with whom he briefly worked in 1693–95. Judging from contemporary reports, Eccles’s music often surpassed Purcell’s in terms of its crowd-pleasing qualities. Although he did write for professionals, Eccles spent most of his time composing for actor-singers, expertly devising music that suited their talents. Eccles gave his collaborators the space to add their own expression, which made his songs tremendously effective in the theater—even if they do not always reward modern musicologists keen on analysis.
