JOSEPH KEY ( ? – 20.9.1784 ) 

What we know so far about Joseph Key:

Joseph Key was an excise officer of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, and an amateur musician who was buried 20th September 1784. His wife, no doubt dependant upon the income from his music, and possibly quite capable of taking singing classes herself, continued to publish his music for another six years after his death.

His known publications are:

  • Key, Joseph, of Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Eight Anthems, on various occasions.  [Book 1.]  Nuneaton: For the Author, 1774.  Only copy known in the Warwick Record Office DR397. Words only, used at St Nicholas Church, Warwick.
    • This contains anthems for Christmas Day, Easter Day, Ascension Day, and for various Thanksgivings and Funerals, etc., as well as a Te Deum.  
       
  • Key, Joseph, of Nuneaton. Eleven anthems, with symphonies and thorough basses, for two hautboys and a bassoon.  Book II. For the Author, [1779].   GB-Lib. Ref G.521.a.
    •   This contains no Psalm tunes.
       
  • Key, Joseph, late of Nuneaton. Five Anthems, Four Collects, Twenty Psalm Tunes, [etc.]. Book III. London: Mrs. Eliz. Key, Nuneaton, [1785].  GB-Lib. Ref G.521.(3).  T 323.
    • Nicholas Temperley’s Hymn Tune Index records this as containing 23 tunes, 9 anthems and 2 liturgical settings in prose. These are the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, used extensively byImmanuel’s Ground for local services of Evensong. 
       
  • Key, Joseph, late of Nuneaton. Five Anthems and Four Hymns. Book IV. London: Henry Thompsons, [c. 1790].   GB-Lib. Ref G.521.(4).
    •  Nicholas Temperley’s Hymn Tune Index [HTI] records this as containing 20 tunes, 5 anthems and 1 set piece.
       
  • Key, Joseph.  18 Marches, apparently lost, but mentioned in Baptie: A Handbook of Musical Biography (London. 1883) [Info from Grove Music online, contributed by Sally Drage).

The list of subscribers printed in the first publication (1774) include “our old friend” William Craddock, and as the Midland Courier Tribune of 28 October 1855 puts it 

“Indeed the list is almost a directory of the gentry and clergy of the time. They include the Rev. Thomas Liptrott, sometime headmaster of King Edward VI school, Nuneaton, who took four copies. One of the subscribers was Mr Thomas Truswell, and in a later book Mr Truswell writes the lyrics of some carols by Key.” 
 

In the first book he also contributes (over the initials T.T.) a poetic dedication to his musical friend under the heading 

To MR JOSEPH KEY
on his
Eight Anthems and Te Deum

To thee, O KEY! I’ll tune my loftiest Lays,
And learn to shew a just Respect to Praise;
To thee alone the sweetest Strains belong,
That ever flow’d from Instrument or Tongue:

With Strength and Vigour ev’ry Line should flow,
To praise thy music, and thy Merit show,
O could I taste of the Plerian Spring,
Or could I, like the God-like David, sing,

In thy sweet Notes my Voice I oft would raise,
In sounding forth the great JEHOVAH’s Praise!
Thy Music’s Charms can calm the Savage Breast,
And set the deep despairing Mind at rest;

Can melt us into soft and pitying Tears,
Can raise our Joys, and banish all our Fears.
Thy Notes appear to ev’ry Person’s View,
In just Proportion, regularly true:

Here *Cherubin and Seraphim do cry
Thrice Holy to the Lord, continually.
How soft and pleasing do thy Strains appear –
What Harmony delights the list’ning Ear!

Hail, gen’rous KEY! whose Name shall ever shine,
Amidst the Works of Harmony divine!
Let ev’ry Soul triumphant Voices raise,
Divine thy Work, and endless be thy Praise!
  
T.T. “

* Here a reference to the words of the Te Deum set by Joseph Key

The 1792 Directory for Nuneaton (Universal British Directory, Warwickshire County Directory), eight years after his death and four after his wife’s, gives no mention of anyone by the name of Key, but the Excise officers were:

“EXCISE OFFICE, Bull Inn, [Nuneaton]. 
Joseph Fydoe, collector; Edward Hyington; supervisor; Mr. Appleby, officer; Mr. Templeman, out-rider.

Apparently very much a part of the musical scene at Nuneaton, very little is known of Key other than what is set out above. A few years after his death, John Valentine, a leading Leicester composer and psalmist, visited Nuneaton to take part in one of the concerts he had organised around the County. Regional, provincial composers and performers travelled many miles over bad roads to take part in activities organised by other local musicians (no change there, then!), and one might expect that Key himself would have done likewise to support his colleagues elsewhere, and therefore quite probably knew Valentine and the musical family dynasty which thrived there, and virtually had a stranglehold on music in the City of Leicester. 

His books contain music composed for a variety of occasions, ranging from simple Psalm and Carol tunes to ambitious Anthems and and elaborate fuguing-tunes, many of them containing instrumental symphonies and solos, thus making use of the many provincial musicians and small orchestras which sprang up in towns and cities at that time. His music contains many overtones and influences from George Frederick Handel; indeed his Easter Anthem contains many passages which one feels are almost a direct crib from Handel’s Messiah. In these days of plagiarism being condemned, perhaps imitation being the best form of flattery might be considered as a better description of this work! 

His music is found in several other printed and manuscript sources in many corners of England, cropping up all along the south coast from Kent to Dorset. Two of his carols were found with altered rhythms and harmonies in Sussex manuscripts from Ditchling and Rodmell, and used by Vic Gammon in his repertoire for Hope in the Valley, a group he founded to sing what he then considered as local compositions. Adopted by Sussex Harmony, the West Gallery Quire from Lewes in Sussex, who in many ways might be considered as their successors, subsequent research has proved them to be by Joseph Key. These included his well-known As shepherds watched their fleecy care, a carol both words and tune of which have become a part of what we now consider as the ‘West Gallery’ Christmas repertoire and tradition.  [Some info from Grove Music Online, contributed by Sally Drage)

Listen to examples of Joseph Keys’ music  (midi files):

Commercially, Peter Holman has recorded two of Joseph Key’s carols on he Hyperion label, details at 
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C1965&f=dvd&vw=dc

There are two downloadable tracks on that page:

  • While shepherds watched their fleecy care
  • Come celebrate th’auspicious morn

which you can listen to for 65p a time.

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