Henry Purcell

English composer

• Born: September 10, 1659
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: November 21, 1695
• Place of death: London, England

The greatest musical genius of the English Baroque period, Purcell was an extremely prolific composer of consistently high-quality musical works. Among his works are more than seventy anthems for the Anglican service, numerous odes for court and public ceremonies, more than two hundred vocal and instrumental pieces, incidental music for more than forty stage productions, five semioperas, and one opera.

Early Life

Henry Purcell (PUR-suhl) was the son of either Henry or Thomas Purcell, brothers and court musicians during the reign of Charles II. He was one of six children born to Elizabeth Purcell; the year of his birth, 1659, is known, but there is no official record of the date. The elder Henry Purcell died when the child was five years old, and Thomas Purcell was responsible for young Henry’s education—thus the uncertainty of his parentage. Sometime between the ages of eight and ten, young Henry was chosen as one of twelve boy choristers of the Chapel Royal, the group of court musicians reinstated by Charles II when he came to the throne in 1660. Under the Puritan rule of Oliver Cromwell , music had deteriorated; the Chapel Royal had been disbanded, church organs destroyed, and music manuscripts burned. Charles II, an enthusiastic patron of the arts, restored music to a central role in church and court life.

Young Purcell began his musical studies with Captain Henry Cooke, Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, by all accounts an excellent musician and teacher. Pelham Humfrey, who succeeded Cooke in 1672, had studied in France and Italy with the Baroque masters and probably influenced Purcell’s dramatic style of composition. (The Baroque tradition emphasized the power of music to stir the emotions.)

Purcell’s genius was evident at an early age. Several compositions (no longer existing) are attributed to him during his years as a chorister, most notably a birthday piece for King Charles composed when Henry was eleven. Growing up near Westminster Abbey, the child would have witnessed the Great Plague in London in 1664 and 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666, devastating events that, along with the sadness of his family life, may have inspired the mournful quality of his melodies. His voice changed in 1673, ending his services in the boys’ choir.

Life’s Work

Even as a student and apprentice, Purcell played a central role in the musical life of the church and court. Like most musicians of his time, he held several appointments simultaneously throughout his life in order to earn a living. Charles II, although a generous patron, was constantly at odds with Parliament over the royal budget. Musicians led a precarious existence, with payments for their services often overdue and difficult to collect.

From 1674 to 1680, Purcell continued his study of composition and keyboard with John Blow, the organist at Westminster Abbey. Purcell was also responsible for maintaining and repairing the king’s wind instruments and for tuning the Abbey organ. He was assigned to copy the compositions of the Elizabethan, French, and Italian masters, thus becoming familiar with the best music of the past. In 1677, he was named official Composer to the King’s Violins, a post that carried a regular salary. In 1678, he composed his first anthem, or hymn based on Scripture, for solo voices, choir, and orchestra. He had also begun writing incidental music for the theater, a common way for court musicians to supplement their incomes. His appointment as organist for Westminster Abbey in 1680 at the age of twenty-one was evidence of his maturity as an artist.

Purcell married Frances Peters in 1680 or 1681. Three of his children died in infancy, probably of tuberculosis, and three survived him. (Only his son Edward inherited his musical talent, becoming a minor composer and organist.) Little is known about Purcell’s personal life, but it was said that he had a pleasant disposition and a sense of humor. Several portraits show him in the elaborately curled Restoration wig and reveal a strong nose, large eyes, and a generous mouth.

Purcell’s accomplishments for the next fifteen years (1680-1695), before his early death, established his reputation as the greatest musician of his time. Throughout three monarchies, he retained his official court appointments and performed as a singer (he is listed as a countertenor in court records) and keyboard artist (harpsichord and organ). His compositions, however, were his greatest achievement, evidence of his astonishing range and versatility.

For the Anglican service, Purcell composed both vocal and instrumental music. For court and public ceremonies, he composed odes (musical settings for dramatic poetry) for such state occasions as official welcomes, royal birthdays, coronations, and funerals. He was also much in demand as a composer of incidental music for the theater. He wrote five semioperas and one true opera (that is, all the words were sung). He also wrote catches, or popular rounds sung on the streets and in taverns, that have been described as indecent—or obscene—depending on the sensibilities of the listener.

His first known publication was a set of trio sonatas for violins, bass, and keyboard in 1683, written in the Italian style. His anthems, performed by the Chapel Royal at Westminster Abbey, were based on Old Testament texts and reveal his greatest gift as a composer: his skill in creating melodies to enhance the words of Scripture. He wrote a number of solos for the Reverend John Gostling, reported to be King Charles’s favorite singer, whose powerful bass voice was a wonder of the time. (The low notes are difficult for singers less gifted than Gostling.) Among his most highly regarded sacred pieces are “Hail, Bright Cecelia” and “Te Deum and Jubilate,” tributes to Saint Cecelia, whose feast was celebrated each year with great public ceremony. Purcell’s sacred music was composed for the highly trained musicians of the Chapel Royal, in a time notable for excellence in performance. In these years, music was moving from the court and drawing rooms of wealthy patrons to public performances for larger audiences, who paid a shilling for admission. For musicians, this meant another opportunity to supplement their incomes.

Purcell’s music for the court included welcome songs for both Charles II and James II , celebrating their return to court after state visits, as well as music for royal birthday celebrations. The inspiration for this music came from Italian and French operas and ballets. Charles II encouraged this style, as he was fond of European music, even adopting Louis XIV’s custom of maintaining a band of twenty-four violins to play whenever he appeared at court. Purcell provided the music for the coronation of James II, who succeeded Charles in 1685. The dismal financial straits of musicians of the time are documented in Purcell’s request for payment for his services a year after the coronation.

When William and Mary were crowned in 1689, Purcell again composed the music. In the only hint of scandal connected with his life at court, Purcell was ordered to turn over the money collected from spectators who paid to witness the ceremony from the organ loft, an apparent oversight that Purcell corrected. His last two anthems were composed in 1694 for the funeral of Queen Mary.

During these years, Purcell was also writing incidental music for plays at the Dorset Gardens and Drury Lane theaters. Restoration audiences loved spectacles, especially masques with supernatural themes, featuring violent storms, demons, and witches. These elaborately staged scenes (usually irrelevant to the plot) starred great numbers of singers and dancers, accompanied by a full orchestra. So popular was Purcell’s reputation with the theatergoing public that his name on the program guaranteed a successful run. Purcell’s theater music marked the beginnings of English musical comedy.

Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas (1689), with its theme of tragic love, was performed only once in 1689 and ignored for the next two hundred years. Unlike his other theater music, this work was written for amateurs, commissioned by Josias Priest, a dancing master who headed a school for young ladies. The librettist was Nahum Tate, an undistinguished poet whose words did not match the brilliance of Purcell’s music. Performed in a little more than an hour, it was designed to show off the singing and dancing talents of schoolgirls with no professional experience. Dido and Aeneas survives in several printed editions. It is Purcell’s masterpiece, a work of genius with perfect unity of music and dramatic effect. Apparently, Purcell never attempted to compose another opera.

In the last five years of his life, Purcell devoted his genius to theater music. Possibly he was out of favor with the court; certainly William and Mary showed less enthusiasm for music than their predecessors. In any case, Purcell no doubt welcomed the extra income. The Prophetess: Or, The History of Diocletian (pr. 1690; better known as Dioclesian ) was performed in 1690. With John Dryden , poet laureate, as librettist, Purcell composed the music for King Arthur (1691), one of his best works for the stage. Again with Dryden (and Sir Robert Howard), he wrote The Indian Queen (1695).

Dryden’s complaint that he was forced to alter his words to fit Purcell’s music suggests the high regard in which the composer was held. Two badly rewritten versions of texts by William Shakespeare, The Fairy Queen (1692), an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (pr. c. 1595-1596), and The Tempest (1695), based on the play of the same title (pr. 1611), list Purcell as the composer, although it is doubtful that he completed the last before his death. Many of the songs from these stage productions became popular with the London public.

Purcell died in 1695, on November 21, after a long illness, probably as a result of tuberculosis and overwork. The anthems he had written for Queen Mary were performed at his own funeral, an occasion of great grief for the London public. He was buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey, not far from the organ he had played on so many ceremonial occasions.

Significance

Purcell’s life and work provoke controversy among scholars and musicians. Little is known about his personal life; information about him must be reconstructed from public documents of the time. Even the dates of his compositions have been disputed, because most were written for immediate performance and survived (if at all) only in manuscript. Also, musicians who followed him revised—some say mutilated—his music in an effort to improve it. From 1876 to 1965, the Purcell Society collected and published scholarly editions of his works in order to make authentic copies available to modern musicians.

Purcell composed in the Baroque tradition, in a time when music was dramatic and emotional. Thus, an appreciation of his work depends on individual taste and the style in favor at the moment. Many of his compositions were performed on a grand scale at Westminster Abbey with a full complement of choirs, orchestra, and organ accompaniment, conditions difficult to duplicate. His vocal and instrumental solos, however, are highly regarded by modern musicians. The consistently high quality of his work is remarkable, the more so because of its quantity. Whether writing for the church or for the stage, Purcell devoted the same meticulous technical skill to his compositions.

Purcell was recognized and honored in his own time. He was fortunate in living during the Restoration, when, after years of Puritan austerity, the English people and their monarchs welcomed music back into church and public life with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, however, the poetry of the time was notoriously bad. Therefore, Purcell never found a writer to equal the genius of his music. A performer himself, he understood the requirements of singers and instrumentalists. His greatest gift was the unsurpassed beauty of his melodies, which expressed the meaning of the text. With the words of Scripture for inspiration, his anthems are among his best works.

Scholars disagree on Purcell’s role in the development of English music. Some believe his work influenced the music of George Frideric Handel; others believe that the tradition which flourished during Purcell’s lifetime died with him, never to be equaled. Like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert, Purcell died young, so it is tempting to speculate what his ultimate contribution might have been had he lived long enough to fulfill the promise of his early genius.

Bibliography

Campbell, Margaret. Henry Purcell: Glory of His Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. A popular biography recounting Purcell’s life and the political, artistic, and social world in which he lived. Provides a new interpretation of Dido and Aeneas.

Cummings, William H. Henry Purcell: 1658-1695. London: Samson Low, Marston, 1881. Reprint. New York: Haskell House, 1969. The author was one of the editors of the Purcell Society (1887), which published corrected versions of the composer’s works. Although some of his information may be incorrect (Purcell’s date of birth, for example), he provides excerpts from newspapers and court records of interest to readers who want to interpret the evidence themselves.

Holland, Arthur Keith. Henry Purcell: The English Music Tradition. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1932. Reprint. 1970. Claims to study Purcell’s music for the first time as part of a distinct English tradition, apart from the European Baroque. Takes issue with previous historians and describes Purcell’s role in the life of the times, as well as his musical development. Written in a lively style, this is entertaining reading for the nonmusician.

Holman, Peter. Henry Purcell. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. A general survey of Purcell’s music, written to coincide with the tercentenary of his death. Depicts Purcell as a musician obsessed with formal counterpoint and well versed in previous English music, yet ready to embrace the new Italian music of the 1680’s.

Keates, Jonathan. Purcell: A Biography. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. Popular biography offering a detailed explanation of much of Purcell’s music. Describes how he absorbed French and Italian influences to create a distinctive English style of music.

Lewis, Anthony, and Nigel Fortune, eds. Opera and Church Music: 1630-1750. Vol. 15 in The New Oxford History of Music. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. Provides information on the development of English opera and church music with a minimum of technical terminology. Explains Purcell’s contribution to the music of his time. Includes musical excerpts of anthems and arias to illustrate the text.

Palisca, Claude V. Baroque Music. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968. Not a complete music history, it selects representative composers from the Baroque period for study. Chapter 10, “Dramatic Music in England,” traces the influence of Italian opera on Dido and Aeneas and the semioperas.

Sadie, Stanley, and John Tyrell, eds. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2d ed. New York: Grove, 2001. The authoritative, indispensable source for musicians and scholars. The entry for Purcell provides exhaustive detail on his style and development and a critical assessment of his work. Gives a complete listing of Purcell’s compositions, including dates of performance or publication and names of authors of the texts.

Zimmerman, Franklin B. Henry Purcell, 1659-1695: His Life and Times. 2d rev. ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Claims to correct conjecture about Purcell’s life by offering a new interpretation of the slender facts. Using contemporary documents, offers convincing evidence that Purcell was the son of Henry, not Thomas. Probably more quotation than the ordinary reader will tolerate. Still, a controversial revision of previous hypotheses about the composer’s life and work, and a fascinating portrayal of Restoration London.