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Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) was a seventeenth-century preacher and hymn writer. He is considered responsible for the introduction and continued use of hymns, as distinct from psalms and paraphrases, in the English Nonconformist churches in the late seventeenth century, and is remembered as the provider of a well-rounded body of hymns for congregational worship. This thesis reviews the historical climate of seventeenth-century England, and discusses Keach's life in terms of that background. Keach's influence on congregational hymn singing, hymn writers, preaching, and education is also examined. Keach's writings and contributions to hymn singing are little known today. This thesis points out the significance of these writings and hymns to seventeenth-century religious life.

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Seventeenth-century England witnessed profound historical, theological, and musical changes. A king was overthrown and executed; religion was practiced fervently and disputed hotly; and English musicians fell under the influence of the Italian stile nuovo. Many devotional songs were printed, among them those which reveal influences of this style. These English-texted sacred songs for one to three solo voices with continuo--not based upon a previously- composed hymn or psalm tune—are emphasized in this dissertation. Chapter One treats definitions, past neglect of the genre by scholars, and the problem of ambiguous terminology. Chapter Two is an examination of how religion and politics affected musical life, the hiatus from liturgical music from 1644 to 1660 causing composers to contribute to the flourishing of devotional music for home worship and recreation. Different modes of seventeenth-century devotional life are discussed in Chapter Three. Chapter Four provides documentation for use of devotional music, diaries and memoirs of the period revealing the use of several publications considered in this study. Baroque musical aesthetics applied to devotional song and its raising of the affections towards God are discussed in Chapter Five. Chapter Six traces the influence of Italian monody and sacred concerto on English devotional song. The earliest compositions by an Englishman working in the stile nuovo are Henry Lawes' 1638 hymn tunes with continuo. Collections of two- and three-voice compositions by Child, the Lawes brothers, Wilson, and Porter, published from 1639 to 1657, comprise Chapter Seven, as well as early devotional works of Locke. Chapter Eight treats Restoration devotional song-- compositions for one to three voices and continuo, mostly of a more secular and dramatic style than works discussed in earlier. The outstanding English Baroque composers--Locke, Humfrey, Blow, and Purcell--are represented, and the apex of this style is found in the latest seventeenth-century publication of devotional song, Henry Playford's Harmonia sacra, (1688, 1693).

John Blow (1649-1708) was among the first group of boys pressed into the service of King Charles II, following the decade of Puritan rule. Blow would make compositional efforts as early as 1664 and, at the age of nineteen, began to assume professional positions within the London musical establishment, ultimately becoming, along with his pupil and colleague, Henry Purcell, London's foremost musician. Restoration sacred music is generally thought of in connection with the stile nuovo which, for the first time, came to be a fully accepted practice among English musicians for the church. But the English sacred polyphonic art, little threatened by England's largely political Reformation, embodied sufficient flexibility as to allow it to absorb new ideas, thereby remaining vital well into the seventeenth century. Preserved from decisive Italian influences by the Interregnum, the English sacred polyphonic tradition awoke at the Restoration full of potential for continuing creative activity. In addition to studying Blow's polyphonic compositions, including the transcription of several not available in modern edition, this paper seeks to address the unique nature of the English polyphonic tradition which allowed it to retain its vitality throughout the seventeenth century, while other polyphonic traditions were succumbing to the ossifying influences of the stile antico concept. Identification of the Continental stile antico through pertinent treatises and scores revealed a marked distinction between its application and the English polyphonic art as seen in the work of John Blow. In the end, the peculiar nature of Restoration polyphony is seen to be derived from a number of factors, among them, the continuation of liturgical ceremonial within the independent English church, the flexibility of the English polyphonic medium with regard to new musical developments, and the interruption of England's cathedral music tradition just as Italian influence was beginning to be felt in liturgical music. The sacred polyphony of John Blow represents the last great flowering of the English polyphonic tradition, with all of its idiosyncracies, in a lively, as yet unfettered style.