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Henry Purcell's prolific output encompassed works for court, church and theatre. Within his short life-span (1659-95), he impressed his stamp on the music of the whole country; both as an organist at Westminster Abbey and as official composer to four monarchs. In the theatre, he collaborated with the greatest writers and poets of his age, including Dryden. Margaret Campbell tells the story of Purcell, painting a vibrant picture of the political, artistic and social world in which he lived, from his childhood in the Restoration and experiences of the Great Plague and the Great Fire to the complex politics of the later 17th century. New insights into Purcell's work are offered, including a controversial interpretation of the date of the opera "Dido and Aeneas". ... Read more

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Songs by the great English Baroque composer Henry Purcell, realized by Britten, most suitable for student singers have been selected for this collection. Contents: Fairest Isle * Hark the ech'ing air * How blest are shepherds * I attempt from love's sickness to fly * I'll sail upon the Dog-star * If music be the food of love (1st version) * Man is for the woman made * Music for a while * On the brow of Richmond Hill * There's not a swain of the plain * Turn then thine eyes * We sing to him. ... Read more

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The tercentenary of the death of world-famous English Baroque composer Henry Purcell (most widely known for his opera "Dido and Aeneas") will be celebrated everywhere. This volume offers an opportunity to choral associations to join the celebration. With Purcell's expertise in setting the English language, ten of the eleven anthems are in English (one in Latin). The editor, secretary to the Purcell Society, has selected those most representative and most useful, from among the composer's prodigious output. ... Read more

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This book, the first general survey of Purcell's music in a generation, is published to coincide with the tercentenary of his death. It is the first book to explore in detail the historical context of Purcell's music, dealing fully with the institutions he worked for, the origin and development of the various genres to which he contributed, and the sources of his music. In the process, a new picture of Purcell's creative personality emerges: a composer obsessed with formal counterpoint, extraordinarily well-versed in English music of the previous century, yet eager to embrace up-to-date features of the Italian style in the 1680s. ... Read more

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Although both the complete libretto (1690) and the full score (1691) of Henry Purcell's first semi-opera "The Prophetess" or, "The History of Dioclesian" have been preserved, the work has tended not to be fully discussed. In this study its relationship to the play of the same name by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger (1622) and in particular the "Alterations and Additions After the Manner of an OPERA" by Thomas Betterton, actor-manager of the Dorsert Garden Theatre, come under scrutiny. A line-by-line comparison is made of the opera with the only two published versions of the play extant, which are in the Beaumont and Fletcher First Folio (1647) and Second Folio (1679). Double numbering is used to aid easy reference to both notes and folios. The alterations are shown to be classifiable under such headings as late 17th-century theatre conventions, political expediency, providing scope for music and dance, and unification. The author uses the high degree of unification found in the text and particularly in the music, which is dealt with separately, to show that earlier criticism of this semi-opera as lacking coherence is unfounded. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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The death of Henry Purcell in November 1695, aged 36, was one of the great losses in musical history. He was one of England's most original and brilliant composers, and his equal would never come again. Of Purcell the man very little is known. His personality has to be reconstructed through the age in which in which he lived, the circumstances of his professional life, the men and women who knew him, and above all through his music. It is here that Robert King has a unique advantage. As one of Britain's leading baroque conductors and director of The King's Consort, he has a long experience in performing Purcell. His fascination for Purcell's music began when he was a 12-year old chorister: he is now regarded as one of the world's leading experts on this remarkable composer. Purcell's genius was recognised early. He became a "Child of the Chapel Royal" when he was only eight or nine years old, and a court musician when he was eighteen, and was thereafter at the centre of London's musical scene. His career spanned three reigns: Charles II, James II and William and Mary.Each had its own exciting demands, and Purcell produced an endless stream of odes, anthems, ceremonial music and songs. In addition to his official duties, he also wrote a vast amount of music for the theatre, including semi-operas like The Fairy Queen and King Arthur, as well as England's first true opera, Dido and Aeneas. Robert King weaves a narrative, bringing together politics (always in the forefront of Purcell's fortunes), religion, society and the theatre. Relating all this to the state of music at the time - instruments, techniques, foreign influences, formal innovations - he has produced a portrait of Henry Purcell to herald the tercentenary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

C Flat
This book has many illustrations and bounteous historical context.However much I enjoyed the historical background, Purcell himself appears too infrequently and always as a nebulous figure.Sometimes the subject of the book appears to be the monarchy with Purcell as a grace note.There is no insight into the composer and we have no real portrait of him except as a catalogue of his music.
I was disappointed that the subject never truly made an appearance and I have no greater understanding of this extraordinary composer. ... Read more

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This book was the first comprehensive survey of Purcell's dramatic music. It is concerned as much with the London theatre world - playhouses, poets, actors, singers, producers - as with the music itself. Purcell wrote music for more than fifty plays of various types, most of them produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, between 1690 and 1695. The songs, dialogues, choruses, act tunes and larger musical scenes are often active participants in the spoken drama, not simply grafted-on entertainments. The extraordinary semi-operas - Dioclesian, King Arthur, and The Fairy-Queen - are placed in the context of a theatre that thrived mainly on plays that, though less lavish, were no less musical. The traditional picture of a composer trapped within a degraded musical society, his natural predilection for opera ignored, is redrawn to show a consummate dramatist exploiting a remarkably musical theatre. ... Read more

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A long overdue book on the master of the English Baroque, this volume contains a group of fresh, new studies on aspects of the composer's background, on his music and on performance practice. Henry Purcell has been acknowledged as one of England's greatest composers. Little is known about his life beyond his official appointments and their duties, but as a musician he excelled as a servant of the Court, the Church and the theatre, writing odes, welcome songs, sonatas, anthems, service music, and a series of operatic extravaganzas which fascinated the public during the 1690s. The Purcell Companion opens with four background chapters - by Andrew Pinnock, Jonathan Wainwright, Graham Dixon and Michael Burden - on his position in British musical history, on music in London during his lifetime, on his Italian connections and on his contemporaries. In the section on the music, Eric Van Tassel presents a new view of the church music, Bruce Wood re-assesses the odes, and Peter Holman writes perceptively about the instrumental music. On the theatre works, Edward Langhans considers their context, while Roger Savage studies the music for the operas and plays. Finally, Andrew Parrott deals with aspects of performance. An up-to-date bibliography details research undertaken on the various aspects of Purcell's life and career. HARDCOVER. ... Read more

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A biography of one of Britain's greatest composers, Henry Purcell, published to coincide with the celebrations of the tercentenary of his death. ... Read more