ABSTRACT
William Congreve provided a libretto, The Judgment of Paris, and four composers presented their settings at Dorset Garden theatre. They came neatly in alphabetical order, John Eccles on 21 March, Gottfried Finger on 28 March, Daniel Purcell on 11 April and then, after Easter, John Weldon on 6 May. Finally all four versions were performed on 3 June, after which the subscribers cast their votes. Weldon won the first prize of 100 guineas and Eccles was second with 50 guineas. A guinea at this time was apparently worth £1 1s 6d,2 so the first prize was a generous £107 10s (£107.50), and even Purcell and Finger, who received the third and fourth prizes of 30 and 20 guineas, did well financially, unless of course they had to bear any expenses, such as copying the music or paying their singers. Daniel Purcell’s setting was published by John Walsh in June 1702 and Eccles’s version came out in a similar format five months later.3 Finger’s setting is lost, but Weldon’s version survived in a manuscript copy and has been published in a modern edition.4
