Humfrey's music, which is chiefly sacred, includes a large number of anthems, odes, services and songs. His compositions, particularly his sacred compositions, have received extensive investigation only on one other occasion, in Henry Bryce Jordan's unpublished dissertation on the subject. Of his sacred music, the anthems form by far the largest and most signification part. Six of them were printed in W. Boyce's Cathedral Music (London, 1760); twelve more, including the "club anthem" and an evening service, are to be found as part of the Tudway Collection of the British Museum (Harl. MS 7338) and others are extant in manuscript at the libraries of Ely, Salisbury, Windsor, the Friz-william Museum (Cambridge), Christ Church (Oxford, Birmingham University, St. Michael's (Tenbury), and the Additional manuscripts in the British Museum. It was primarily int he anthems that Humfrey introduced into England some of the declamatory methods of the French theatre and thus secured for himself the credit of having established their form and style. His solo songs, on the other hand seem to occupy a somewhat less esteemed position, attributable perhaps to their remarkable simplicity, and in few cases to their apparent neglect of such musical fundamentals as melody and rhythm. It is the songs, more accurately the secular songs for solo voice, which have been chosen as the topic of this study.

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