He detests the music of Charles II.'s French master, Grebus (Grabu):
God forgive me! I never was so little pleased with a concert of musick in my life.[1]
And, generally speaking, all instrumental music wearies him :
I must confess, whether it be that I hear it but seldom, or that really voice is better, but so it is that I found no pleasure at all in it, and methought two voyces were worth twenty of it.[2]
What a list of qualities eliminated ! What is left him ? He has just told us; one voice, or two at most, accompanied or not with the lute, the theorbo or the viol. And what are these voices to sing?
Simple melodies, intelligently declaimed: such as those of Lawes, the fashionable idol of the moment, the composer whose name occurs most frequently in the Diary.[3] As regards the theatre, Pepys appears to have a special liking for the music of Lock, with whom he was personally acquainted,[4] and that of the composer who wrote the musical score for Massinger's Virgin Martyr in 1668—the music that made him sick for pleasure. In church he is still an admirer of Lock,[5] and he approves of Ravenscroft's Psalms for four voices, although he finds them very monotonous.[6]
But at heart he prefers above everything the good old English melodies:
- ↑ 1st October, 1667.
- ↑ 10th August, 1664.
- ↑ Pepys sings them constantly (March, April, May, June, November, 1660, 19th December, 1662, 19th November, 1665, etc).
- ↑ 11th and 12th February, 1660. Pepys was acquainted also with the elder Purcell.
- ↑ 21st February, 1660.
- ↑ November, December, 1664. But on this ground the Italians get the better of him later.
