John Blow

John Blow was an English composer and organist working in London during the reign of Charles II and beyond. He held major posts at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, wrote church music for royal occasions, and composed Venus and Adonis, a short masque now often called the earliest surviving English opera. He also taught Henry Purcell, whose own work he outlived by a decade. Blow's music is prized today for its expressive text-setting and its role at the start of English opera.

Blow's music moves at a stately, unhurried pace, built for the acoustics of English churches and court rooms rather than large concert halls. Venus and Adonis, his best-known work, alternates simple, syllabic singing that follows the natural rhythm of English speech with short instrumental dances for strings, in the French-influenced style fashionable at the English court. Expect small forces, a handful of singers, strings, and continuo (a bass instrument plus keyboard filling in the harmony), rather than a large orchestra. The mood shifts between courtly elegance and genuine tenderness, especially in the final scene mourning Adonis. Pieces are compact, often under an hour, with clear-cut sections rather than long symphonic development, and endings tend to be quiet rather than triumphant.

John Blow was born in 1649 in Newark, England, and became a chorister at the Chapel Royal in London as a boy, during the years after the English monarchy was restored under Charles II. He grew up immersed in the musical life of the court and the church, and by his twenties he had already begun to take on major positions.

In 1668 Blow was appointed organist of Westminster Abbey, one of the most prominent musical posts in England, and he later added roles at the Chapel Royal, composing anthems and services for royal ceremonies. He briefly stepped aside from the Westminster Abbey post in favor of his pupil Henry Purcell, then resumed it after Purcell's death in 1695. Blow was also known as a teacher, training a generation of English church musicians.

Alongside his church duties, Blow composed Venus and Adonis, a short musical drama believed to have been performed at the English court in the early 1680s, likely for a private royal occasion before being staged more publicly. It is often cited as the earliest surviving English opera, predating Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, which it may have influenced. Blow continued working at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal until his death in 1708, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey, a mark of the esteem in which he was held.