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General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1898Original Publisher: TauchnitzSubjects: Biography ... Read more

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A study of Purcell's operas; works of great musical stature, which, with the exception of "Dido and Aeneas," are seldom studied or staged by contemporary opera companies. ... Read more

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Publisher: London : K. Paul, Trench, Trubner; New York, E. P. DuttonSubjects: Musicians -- EnglandNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This book, published to coincide with the tercentenary of the Purcell's death, is the first to be devoted to the performance of his music.The contributors--all leading scholars and performers--deal with issues of performance practice relating both to playing the music and staging the operas. ... Read more

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This is the first book thoroughly to explore the musical style of Henry Purcell. In this comprehensive study, Martin Adams identifies music by other composers, both within England and from abroad, which influenced Purcell's compositional decisions. Using a mix of broad stylistic observation and detailed analysis, Adams distinguishes between late seventeenth-century English style in general and Purcell's style in particular and chronicles the changes in the composer's approach to the main genres in which he worked, especially the newly emerging ode and English opera. As a result, Adams reveals that although Purcell went through a marked stylistic development, encompassing an unusually wide range of surface changes, special elements of his style remained constant. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of music and theatre history and of British cultural and social history. ... Read more

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This volume is the first ever collection of Henry Purcell's opera texts. The much neglected `dramatick operas' or `semi-operas' are here edited in entirety, alongside Purcell's famous all-sung work, Dido and Aeneas, in both its 1689 form and its 1700 adaptation as a series of masques in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.Each opera has a short introduction explaining the circumstances of the composition of the work and the sources of the opera text. ... Read more

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Although it takes little more than an hour to perform, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas stands as the greatest operatic achievement of seventeenth-century England. This book demonstrates the opera's deep roots in the theatrical and musical traditions of its day, summarizing the cultural climate in which the opera was composed and analyzing Nahum Tate's libretto in light of seventeenth-century English music text conventions.Harris also evaluates the surviving sources, comparing them with the original libretto, and discusses the work's performance history and critical reception from the first performance through the revivals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Scholarly but readable musical guide
Ellen Harris' guidebook on Purcell's work, arguably the greatest English opera before Benjamin Britten's string of twentieth-century masterpieces, accomplishes a lot in not very many pages. She devotes the first part to the libretto by Nahum Tate, placing it within the context of his other works and Restoration drama in general, and also comparing it to its source, Virgil's Aeneid. Perhaps the most interesting conclusion she reaches is that, though Dido was given originally with an allegorical Prologue (for which the music is now lost), the nature of the opera itself means it is most likely not allegorical, contrary to the assertions of some other writers. This is followed by a discussion of the most important extant manuscript sources, including the one copy of the libretto from the first production in 1689, and the earliest and therefore most important copy of the music, the so-called Tenbury manuscript dating from much later, probably around 1775. (It is this source on which most of the best current editions are based.)

She then turns to the work itself, discussing its musical aspects such as Purcell's concern for symmetry and tonal unity, his skill at setting the English language, and his use of ground-bass techniques. Again, one notes the care with which the composer's work is set within its historical context and compared and contrasted with his contemporaries both in England and on the Continent.The final portion of the book comprises a history of Dido's performances and recordings since its composition, and the various alterations that were made in both text and music to suit contemporary taste, followed by a general return to a more authentic performance style in the later twentieth-century. The turning point was probably around 1950, with the appearance of an edition by Benjamin Britten and the work's revival with the great Kirsten Flagstad. In recent years good recordings of Dido and Aeneas have proliferated (I note a current one starring Susan Graham, for example) and the lack of an up-to-date discography is a drawback (Harris' book was published in 1987). However, that is the only feature lacking in this otherwise consistently informative, lucidly written volume. ... Read more

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This collection of essays marks the tercentenary in 1995 of Purcell's death. The essays represent the best recent research and deal mainly with the autograph manuscripts, Purcell's compositional technique, the relationship between Purcell and his teacher John Blow, a reassessment of Purcell court odes, performance practice and wordsetting, and eighteenth-century reception history, particularly regarding King Arthur. The book contains the first written reports on the discovery of two important autograph manuscripts. ... Read more

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Written to accompany the Tercentenery exhibition at The British Library to commemorate the death of the composer Henry Purcell, this study provides some insight into his attitudes, interests and working practices. Little is known about Purcell's personal life or character, but he is the first major English composer to have left a substantial body of autograph music manuscripts, together with copies made by his close colleagues, Many of his manuscripts are shown here, together with portraits and contemporary London scenes. ... Read more

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Henry Purcell's only Opera proper, Dido and Aeneas is a magnificent example of English Baroque music, with lively dances and passionate aria sections that demonstrate Purcell's masterful compositional and choral writing skill. Based on a libretto by Nahum Tate it was first performed in 1689, comprises three acts and lasts about an hour. Filled with dramatic lyricism with a wide range of musical and emotional content, it is a monumental Baroque composition considered to be one of England's foremost operatic works. Dido and Aeneas contains all the elements for a successful opera including a shipwreck, sorcery, love and lost love and death. This is the Vocal and Full Operatic Score, edited by Margaret Laurie and Thurston Dart. With its interesting and imaginative realization and authentic editorial process this is an excellent edition that features some performing choices and variants and also includes the reconstructed prologue. ... Read more