John Blow

John Blow was born in Newark, Nottinghamshire, in February 1649, and was admitted as one of the first set of choristers at the restored Chapel Royal in 1660. He showed early promise as a composer, and in 1668 was appointed organist of Westminster Abbey — a position he held until 1679, when he was succeeded by his pupil Henry Purcell, and to which he returned after Purcell’s death in 1695.

His output covers anthems for the Chapel Royal, court odes for royal occasions, a substantial body of keyboard music, and the masque *Venus and Adonis* (c. 1683), often described as the earliest surviving English opera. He held the posts of organist at the Chapel Royal, Master of the Children, and Composer to the Chapel Royal across the reigns of Charles II, James II, William III and Anne. His relationship with Purcell was one of mutual influence; the *Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell* (1696) is one of his most personally expressive works.

Blow died in Westminster in October 1708 and was buried in the Abbey, where his pupil Purcell had been laid to rest thirteen years earlier. Music Preserved’s archive includes a selection of his choral and keyboard work in twentieth-century early-music performance.