Linn Records has an enviable reputation for superb performances coupled with first-rate musicological credentials, as in the many recordings by John Butt's Dunedin Consort, for example. The present recording shares the former, if sadly not always the latter, aspect, not least in a conjectural reconstruction (track 28) of the occasion in 1742 when Handel made the infamous retort, as reported by Burney, ‘You are welcome home, Mr Dubourg!’, here spoken in an unconvincing mock-German accent. Similarly questionable is the inclusion of Dubourg's Maggot for violin and figured bass (Dublin: J. & W. Neale, 1727) – also issued for two flutes (London: J. Walsh, 1730) – in a ‘funky’ modern arrangement for three solo violins and strings including lutes (track 5) that also ignores the original structure of the piece. This and other criticisms apart, Peter Whelan directs the Irish Baroque Orchestra (of which he is the current artistic director) from the continuo harpsichord in performances that are infectiously enjoyable and at times positively inspired. The principal soloists are Sophie Gent and Claire Duff (violin), Anna Devin (soprano), Rachel Kelly (mezzo), Edward Grint (bass) and Philippe Grisvard (solo harpsichord).

Dubourg studied the violin with Geminiani in London, worked alongside Handel and both performed and freely ornamented violin sonatas from Corelli's Op. 5. His music reflects all three baroque compositional influences to some extent, but with relatively little sign of stylistic maturation – some of his finest ode music dates from the 1750s rather than later, for example. He performed and toured (for example, Bath in 1718) before he first visited Dublin in 1721, joined the Irish State Musick in 1723 and was appointed ‘Master of the King's Musick’ there in early 1728. He owned a property on College Green, where Geminiani died in 1762, in addition to one in London. Although his death is invariably stated to be 3 July 1767, the date of his will, it was registered on 5 July, the date on his tombstone (he was buried on 7 July). Dubourg's grandson was the violinist and author George Dubourg (1799–1882), whose nephew, the minor playwright Augustus William Dubourg (1830–1910), possessed a portrait of his great-grandfather, the present whereabouts of which is sadly unknown. Matthew's most famous violin pupil was John (‘Jackie’) Clegg (c1714–1746 or after), others being Samuel Lee (died 1776), Elizabeth (Catherine) Plunket(t) (1725–1744) and presumably Benjamin Johnson (fl. 1724–1768), to whom he left a bequest. In addition, the soprano Mrs Raffa, soloist in his 1735 ode to Queen Caroline, debuted at the Crow Street Musick Hall on 28 November 1733 as ‘a Scholar of Mr Dubourg's’. It was an entirely fictitious account in a novel dating from 1771 (Francis Fleming, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures, The Perils and Critical Escapes of Timothy Ginnadrake) of a performance by Dubourg and a pupil, the novel's hero, of Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Violins rv519, however, that led to its inclusion here (tracks 2–4).

Unlike the enduring position of ‘Master of the King's/Queen's Musick’ (latterly ‘Music’) in England, which commenced with Nicholas Lanier in 1625, there were just six holders of the equivalent position in Ireland, each retaining it until his death: William Viner (1703–1716), John Sigismond Cousser (1716–1727), Dubourg (1728–1767), Richard Hay (1767–1785), John Crosdill (1785–1825) and Dr John Smith (1825–1861). The first four Masters were violinists and presumably led performances from their instrument, whilst Crosdill was a cellist, and performances during his tenure were often directed by John Parkinson, the administrative ‘Deputy Master and Director’ (the wording varied) of the Irish State Musick. After Smith's decease this small orchestra was replaced by a viceregal band. As for the title of Irish Master, the wording varied somewhat, being at its lengthiest for Dubourg ‘Chief Composer and Master of the Musick, attending His Majesty's State in Ireland’, with his later appointments to the royal family in England being appended to this. The Master was not required to be in permanent residence: Dubourg's many unofficial performances during his time in office, chiefly in Dublin and London, but also in York (1727), Edinburgh (1729) and Chester (1731), for example, attest to this. This was presumably reflected in the position's salary of £100, which remained the same from Viner through to at least 1783 for Hay (Cousser was paid £80 plus a fee, generally £20, for state compositions). Dubourg was awarded an extra £20 specifically for his 1752 ode, however, and in 1760 he was additionally appointed ‘state kettledrummer’ with a salary of £70 (this was continued for Hay), possibly a sinecure at that time. In comparison, Maurice Greene received £200 per annum as English Master between 1735 and 1755.

In eighteenth-century England, the Master chiefly composed annual New Year and royal birthday odes in addition to ones for special occasions such as royal weddings, deaths and anniversaries, and he also directed the monarch's private band. The odes were invariably set to words by the Poet Laureate, a position created in the seventeenth century. The situation in Ireland was on a much smaller scale, given the absence of the monarch there, with royal birthday odes being the Master's principal compositional product. Benjamin Victor (c1704–1778) was Ireland's sole Poet Laureate, being appointed to that position in 1755, and he wrote or compiled many of Dubourg's and Hay's ode texts, from 1735 for George II to 1779 for Queen Charlotte, completing the latter before his death. Ode performances and occasional public rehearsals, such as in 1753, 1755, 1759 and 1761, were given at Dublin Castle, either in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant or, more commonly until 1767, the three Lords Justices who similarly represented the monarch. On occasion there were as many as three repeat performances for charitable purposes at one of the fashionable theatres, as in 1735 and annually from 1743 to 1752. The composition of Dublin royal odes finally came to an end after Smith's death in 1861, although the lack of reported printed ode wordbooks and/or texts in the public press during at least the previous half century implies that the practice had already died out in effect long before then, as it did in London in 1818.

Dublin birthday events generally followed a relatively stylized course. The following report issued by Dublin Castle and printed in The Dublin Gazette of 7–11 November 1752 preceding the ode text is typical:

In addition, there was generally a ball and supper at the Castle following the play. The venue for the ode performance from 1728 onwards was invariably the Ballroom (remodelled by 1749 and replaced by the original St Patrick's Hall in 1783) that accommodated seven hundred people seated in raised tiers.

Occasional Dublin performances of birthday odes for Queen Anne, the first possibly by John Abell (1704) and the second by Charles Ximenes (1707), led to an annual series by Cousser that commenced in 1708, long before his appointment (Viner is not known to have written any state music). Of these, only the music for the 1711 Queen Anne ode and that for the 1713 Peace of Utrecht celebrations seem to be extant. Dubourg composed annual birthday odes for the reigning monarch and the queen, in addition to one for Prince Frederick of Wales in 1748, and some two hundred and fifty movements in almost four hundred folios of music manuscripts are preserved in four bound volumes at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London (MS 847–850). Their precise provenance is unknown, but Burney states ‘the odes which [Dubourg] set for Ireland, and innumerable solos [sonatas] and concertos which he composed for his own public performance, are now in the possession of one of his disciples, and of some of them the composition is excellent’ (Charles Burney, A General History of Music From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, ed. Frank Mercer, two volumes (New York: Dover, 1957), volume 2, 998). The books essentially comprise ode music, mostly in score, but occasionally as vocal performance parts, with many emendations, pasted-over pieces of paper, occasional reset portions of text, instructions to Dubourg's copyist and so on that imply workbooks rather than final scores, with most of the movements not in sequence. There are no ‘solos and concertos’, however, only an occasional brief sinfonia, and various pages with Italianate instrumental music in faint pencil, which may have been copied by Dubourg rather than composed by him, as in MS 848 fols 19r–23v. Estelle Murphy has also identified at least six movements from the 1716 London New Year ode (text by Nicholas Rowe) as originally set to no longer extant music by John Eccles and possibly copied by Dubourg rather than recomposed by him. The volumes were presumably donated to The Sacred Harmonic Society (1832–1882), as listed in their 1872 catalogue, and thence to the RCM.

A considerable number of ode texts have not yet come to light for Dubourg, Hay and Crosdill, and no ode music has been found for the latter two, despite the fact that wordbooks were printed for immediate circulation. Other ode texts have survived in Dublin and/or London papers or other printed sources (such as the Victor Letters), with the 1751, 1753, 1761 (George III) and 1764 (Queen Charlotte) odes each appearing in five extant printed sources. In addition, Hay's 1778 text for George III appeared in both The Scots Magazine (Edinburgh) and the Quebec Gazette, and the latter also printed the 1776 George III and 1779 Queen Charlotte texts. The majority of Dubourg's odes are different from the 1739 one for George II, Crowned with a More Illustrious Light (MS 847 fols 43r–59r), reconstructed here by Peter Whelan (tracks 19–27), in that they generally commence either with a recitative or a chorus, followed by a succession of paired recitatives and da capo arias, and with a closing chorus that may reprise the opening one (as in 1753). An occasional duet, a successive pair of arias or a mid-ode chorus may also be found. The total absence of recitatives in the 1739 ode, which consists of choruses, arias (performed with only partial da capos), a duet and a sinfonia (unlabelled as such in the manuscript), is therefore atypical.

There is no shortage of jingoism and of hagiographical praise for both the ode's royal subject and the current Lord Lieutenant (by surname, as in the ode of 1739, ‘Devonshire’ – William Cavendish, the Third Duke), and current European conflicts are sometimes mentioned, as in track 16 (‘Now the Mingling Hosts Engage’). References to Ireland are either totally lacking or relatively prominent, as in the ode of 1753, Hibernia's Sons, Your Voices Raise, the opening/closing chorus of which (recycled in 1754 as the closing chorus) is performed here (track 1 – MS 849 fols 40r–54r), or Hibernia, Late in Mournful Mood in 1761, reflecting the death of George II the year before. There are many instances of recycled sections of ode text. For example, ‘Pleas'd with our state we gladly sing’ was initially set as a combined duet and chorus in 1739 (not two separate movements, as implied by the CD layout), with lines 1–2 subsequently recycled as a recitative in 1742, 1746 and 1748. ‘Great, inexhausted source of day’ was set as the opening recitative for George II in 1728, 1729 (?), 1730, 1734, 1773 and 1780, the latter two modified for Hay, and ‘Thee, surely, gracious heav'n design'd’, set as the fourth-movement aria in 1743, 1744, 1748, 1773 and 1780, was recycled in full as a recitative in 1765.

No overtures are extant in the RCM manuscripts, but MS 847 fol. 104r states ‘To begin Imedatly after the Overture’, and Hay's 1771 ode text for George III includes the instruction ‘After the Overture a full Symphony’ (in Dubourg's manuscripts symphony generally refers to a ritornello). The sopranos enter at the very start of the opening chorus of the 1739 ode, surely implying an overture to set the key before this. The ‘Trumpet tune’ (track 18) is from the 1759 ode (not the as yet unreported 1741 one, as suggested in the booklet), where it is entitled ‘March first violin and Trumpet’ with a three-stave layout (MS 850 fol. 8r). It is somewhat reinterpreted and rescored here, and the recitative and an aria with obbligato trumpet, ‘Sound the trumpet’, which originally followed the piece have been omitted; their inclusion would have been beneficial.

There are three fine examples of arias with obbligato instruments included on the CD: ‘Now the mingling hosts engage’ (track 16 – MS 847 fols 31v–37r), with obbligato bassoon and cello from the 1743 ode (not 1740, as in the booklet); ‘Soft breathes the melting flute’ (track 17 – MS 848 fols 36r–37v), with two flutes echoed by the violins in the opening ritornello and a solo flute alongside the voice from the 1740 ode (not 1743, as in the booklet); and ‘Born to glory’ from the 1739 ode (track 25), with obbligato cello originally played by ‘Mr. [Sprackling] Dowdal[l]’, who was appointed to the State Musick in 1717 and died in 1743. It is unfortunate that none of Dubourg's arias with obbligato violin, several of which have continuo rather than full string accompaniment, have been included to offer a better demonstration of his performance ability: for instance, ‘All the shock that fate ordains’ (MS 847 fols 86v–87v) could have easily replaced Vivaldi's rv519 on the disc.

The Irish State Musick officially consisted of just eleven instrumentalists until 1783 (the otherwise superb booklet notes by Samantha Owens appear to overlook this), with a separate group of six trumpeters and a kettledrummer that was in more regular demand for state events and consequently paid more. Their ranks were clearly augmented as and when required, not least for balls – that for George II's birthday in 1731 featured a different band in each of three rooms, for example. Dubourg's occasional scoring of royal ode music for instruments other than those available to him also confirms this. The majority of the State Musicians were listed as string players, albeit with no viola player, as reflected in Dubourg's ode manuscripts, before the State Musick was reformed in 1783. Some of them also played a wind instrument, notably flute, oboe, bassoon or horn (never amounting to a pair). A harpsichordist was listed until the 1740s, but no organ, as was employed here for the 1739 ode. As for singers, an all-male chorus – replaced on this CD by five mixed voices with a non-choral sound – and soloists were originally drawn from Dublin's two cathedrals, with later soloists generally professional singers engaged at the Dublin theatres and on occasion ‘a boy’ from one of the cathedrals. As with the Master, the State Musicians were not full-time, and many of them also performed in the ten-man City Music, which from 1753 included two horn players, as well as in the theatre and in various other bands, such as those for the seasonal pleasure gardens or the Rotunda hospital performances, which in 1758 included two oboes and a viola. Pairs of both wind instruments were occasionally employed in Dubourg's ode settings.

Dubourg's choral writing, usually in three parts without tenors, corresponds with his lack of a viola, as in the 1739 ode with strings and continuo, although Hibernia's Sons, Your Voices Raise (1753) is scored for four-part chorus with a single trumpet, kettledrums, strings and continuo. The influence of Handel is evident in both odes, with the opening chorus of the 1739 work bearing some resemblance to the start of O Praise the Lord with One Consent (Chandos Anthem 9, hwv254 – similarly lacking violas), although the use of a single trumpet rather than a pair is typical of Dubourg.

Burney notes a concert that Dubourg gave at the Drury Lane theatre, London, on 8 April 1720 in which he played ‘several concertos and solos of his own composition’ (A General History of Music, volume 2, 994–995). Since he evidently wrote these for his own performance rather than circulation or publication, it is perhaps unsurprising that only one Violin Concerto (in D major) is extant. Presumably an early work, it is in the four-movement da chiesa tradition of Corelli – or possibly even Handel, whose early Sonata a5, hwv288, is the closest he got to writing a violin concerto. The latter's influence is reflected not least in the use of hemiolas in Dubourg's slow movements. The solo violin is accompanied by continuo throughout, with less taxing music than that found in the obbligato-violin ode arias, and with the four-part strings only playing in the ritornellos of this eight-minute-long work. The set of manuscript parts, assumed to be in the hand of a German copyist temporarily in England, is in Dresden (Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliotek Dresden, Mus. 2962-O-1, digitalized on imslp.org). Although the composer's name is given as ‘Sig.^r Doubor’, there are other variants of Dubourg's surname, such as ‘Du Bourg’ (Bath, 1718), ‘Dieburg’ (Edinburgh, 1729), ‘Du Bourge’ (a Gigg manuscript at US-PHu) or ‘Duburgh’ (two manuscripts listed by RISM); it may be too fanciful to make any familial connection with Handel's servant ‘John Duburk’ (1759), however. The concerto was revived under the auspices of RISM in Frankfurt am Main in 2014, but this is its first commercial recording (tracks 6–9).

The traditional Irish air ‘Ciste nó stór’, here played by a solo violin (track 11), is simply Dubourg's transcription of that song together with badly transliterated Irish words (MS 850 fol. 60r), hardly a valid reason for its inclusion. It is possible that he planned to arrange it for voice and keyboard, as he did with the popular ‘Aileen [sic] Aroon’ (‘Eibhlín a Rún’ in Irish), printed with similarly bowdlerized Irish words and set in G major in The Monthly Masque or an Entertainment of Musick consisting of Four Celebrated Songs. Set for the Violin, German Flute and Harpsicord [sic] (volume 41 (Dublin: W. Manwaring, c1742), 34–35). This vocal version would have made a perfect choice for inclusion here, perhaps before Dubourg's theme and two simple variations on the tune for solo harpsichord in D major (Dublin: W. Manwaring, 1746), which is performed here (track 10) without the printed repeats, ignoring the final da capo instruction to reprise the theme, and with the unacknowledged addition of lutes and pizzicato lower strings.

Charles Burney met Dubourg in Chester – where the latter invariably broke his journey between London and Dublin (as Handel also did in 1741) – in the summer of 1744, or possibly in 1743. Although the former year is generally cited (he certainly met Thomas Arne there then), Burney's memoirs cite the latter in a longer and more detailed account of their meeting. Burney accompanied Dubourg in Corelli's ‘fifth solo’ (Op. 5 No. 5), reporting that he was ‘in form, style and execution superior to any player on the Violin that I had heard before’, largely owing in no small part to Dubourg's ornamentation of the solo line in the two slow movements (Slava Klima, Gary Bowers and Kerry S. Grant, eds, Memoirs of Dr. Charles Burney 1726–1769 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988), 38). He did the same with one such movement in Sonata 7 but freely ornamented (and in two instances wrote variations on) all of the movements in Sonatas 8–11. The decision to include Op. 5 No. 9 here (tracks 12–15) is therefore admirable: Sophie Gent performs what is essentially Corelli's version followed by Dubourg's on the existing repeats with harpsichord (only) continuo. The digitized manuscript, Correllis [sic] solos: grac'd. by Doburg [sic], is available online (hathitrust.org). Incidentally, William Viner also ornamented Corelli's sonatas, and his manuscript, no longer extant, was later owned by Cousser!

In conclusion, what should have taken pride of place as the first CD devoted exclusively to Dubourg is, despite the fine performances, hindered by the inclusion of music with a tenuous connection to the composer as well as a somewhat cavalier approach to his intentions, not least with regard to scoring and repeats, resulting in a ‘curate's egg’ overall. It is to be hoped that some other such enterprising musician will now take up the challenge to record a CD dedicated exclusively to Dubourg's finest royal ode music.