J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

At first the real focus of attention was the older child Charles junior, who
showed distinct promise before he reached three years of age. His brother Samuel was
eight years younger, and started his musical activity at the comparatively advanced age
of four or five. According to Charles senior, ‘Mr [Samuel] Arnold was the first who,
hearing him at the harpsichord, said, “I set down Sam for one of my family.” But we
did not much regard him, coming after Charles.’ 28 Samuel continued to educate
himself, and his musical ability ‘sprung up like a mushroom’ (his father’s phrase). 29
By the time he was eight, he had written his first oratorio, Ruth (written, that is;
apparently he had composed much of it in his head two years previously). It was this
work that impressed William Boyce when he came visiting in 1774. ‘I hear you have
got an English Mozart in your house’ he said as he arrived, and his assessment of Ruth
was: ‘These airs are some of the prettiest I have seen. This boy writes by nature as true
a bass as I can do by rule or study.’ 30
Both of these comments prophesy aspects of Samuel’s later style. His
phenomenally quick ear for linear coherence and harmonic function (which is what
Boyce means by his second comment) enabled him to achieve competence largely
through self-instruction; but there are at times doubtfully successful progressions even
in some of his mature works which might have been avoided had he received a more
secure academic grounding in thoroughbass and counterpoint. Nevertheless, perhaps it
was this very lack of an academic approach to harmony that was to leave him open to
the even more original harmonic and contrapuntal style of J. S. Bach. Boyce’s first
comment, on the other hand, puts his finger on one of Wesley’s great gifts—the ability
to write wonderful (almost excessively attractive) tunes. What is a melodic gift? Most
attentive listeners will have had the experience of noticing the difference between two
28 Routley, Wesleys, p.53; see also Olleson, Wesley, p.9.
29 Routley, Wesleys, p.53.
30 S. Wesley’s Reminiscences, fol.33, quoted in Routley, Wesleys, p.54; Olleson, Wesley, p.10. By
‘Mozart’ Boyce meant of course not the mature composer of Don Giovanni and the ‘Jupiter’
symphony, but the charming boy who had dazzled London ten years previously.
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