Dubourg, Geminiani and the Violin Concerto in D Major: A Misattribution

Abstract

Matthew Dubourg (1703–1767) is today mostly remembered as the virtuoso violinist who led the band of musicians for the premiere of Handel’s oratorio Messiah in Dublin in April 1742. He was a child prodigy – contemporary reports reveal that he was performing publicly at the age of eleven – and pupil of Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762), with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. In 1728 Dubourg was made Master of the State Musick in Ireland following the death of Johann Sigismund Cousser (1660–1727), who had held the position since 1716. Geminiani, who had first been offered the position, declined it on account of being a Roman Catholic (other theories for Geminiani’s refusal are advanced in Enrico Careri, Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 21). Dubourg’s position as Master required him to compose odes to celebrate the birthdays of the British monarchs in Dublin. Surviving poetry, newspaper reports and music suggest that he composed an unbroken series of two odes per year until his death. Dubourg’s other compositions survive in various eighteenth-century manuscripts and publications. These include dances – minuets, jigs and ‘Dubourg’s Maggott’, for instance – some songs and his ‘graces’ for Corelli’s Op. 5 violin sonatas (on the last see Neal Zaslaw, ‘Ornaments for Corelli’s Violin Sonatas, Op. 5’, Early Music 24/1 (1996), 95–116, and Robert E. Seletsky, ‘18th-Century Variations for Corelli’s Sonatas, Op. 5’, Early Music 24/1 (1996), 119– 130). Dubourg’s most popular work was undoubtedly his variations on the traditional Irish song ‘Eibhlín a Rún’, first published for harpsichord in 1746 (Select Minuets, collected from the Castle Balls, and the Publick Assemblies in Dublin. Composed by the best Masters . . . to which is added Eleena Roon by Mr. Dubourgh, set to the Harpsichord with his Variations (Dublin: William Mainwaring), held at The National Library of Ireland, Dublin (IRL-Dn), Add. Mus. 9013). This publication was advertised in The Dublin Journal for 27–30 December 1746. Despite this substantial compositional output, Dubourg is not well known as a composer. Somewhat addressing this neglect is a recording by the Irish Baroque Orchestra, which mostly features works composed by Dubourg. This album – ‘Welcome Home, Mr Dubourg’ (Linn CKD 532, 2019) – was reviewed by David Rhodes (Eighteenth-Century Music 17/2 (2020), 281–285), who provided a thorough and thoughtful account of its contents, the merit of their inclusion and their context in relation to what we know of Dubourg’s life and career. Unsurprisingly, it includes Dubourg’s variations on ‘Eibhlín a Rún’ and Corelli’s Violin Sonata in A major Op. 5 No. 9 with Dubourg’s graces. The recording features excerpts from the birthday odes for Dublin Castle as well as the ode for George II’s birthday in 1739 in its entirety. Much of the music is not extant, but the autograph manuscripts for this ode and the excerpts included on the recording are held at the Royal College of Music in London (GB-Lcm 847, 848, 849 and 850). The order of the movements as they are bound across these four volumes is haphazard, and further complicated by the composer’s reuse of movements or ‘self-borrowing’; much work remains to be done to identify and date the ode movements