Page 77 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

BAROQUE 1600–1750 75

See also: Euridice 62–63 ■ Orfeo ed Euridice 118–119 ■ The Magic Flute 134–137 ■
The Barber of Seville 148 ■ La traviata 174–175 ■ Peter Grimes 288–293

anthems and songs from the age some suggest that it was
of 16. Many of these early works commissioned originally for the
show the depth of imagination that court of Charles II. There is,
would later make Dido and Aeneas however, no evidence of any
such a powerful work. performance in the proposed period
Surprisingly little is known (1683–1684). Priest himself was a
about the creation of Dido and choreographer and dancing master
Aeneas. The earliest surviving who knew Purcell from stage
manuscripts date from several productions on which they had
decades after Purcell’s death, both worked. John Blow’s Venus
and some material, such as music and Adonis, the model for Dido and Henry Purcell
for his librettist Nahum Tate’s Aeneas and also an opera with a
prologue, has been lost. There is prologue and three acts, had been Born in 1659, when court life
also a mystery about when and revived by Priest and his pupils and was about to be restored with
where the work was first performed. premiered at court around 1683. the accession of Charles II,
Although it was staged at Josias Purcell was a thoroughly
Priest’s Boarding School for Young The continental influence trained musician. In his
Ladies in Chelsea in the late 1680s, While Purcell drew on the style relatively brief career, he
of his English predecessors and acquired the range of skills
contemporaries such as Matthew needed to succeed in every
Dido entertains Aeneas in a scene Locke and Blow, European musical available genre. He was a boy
by an unknown 18th-century Italian chorister in the Chapel Royal,
artist. While based on Virgil’s epic models are evident in Dido and and, as an adult, held a series
poem, Purcell’s opera used witches, Aeneas and other works. During of court appointments, writing
rather than gods, to separate the lovers. his years in exile, Charles II had ❯❯
music for state occasions in
addition to works for church
and chamber, songs, and
harpsichord suites. As the
organist of Westminster
Abbey from 1680, he worked
close to London’s West End
and wrote incidental music
for dozens of plays. He also
collaborated on a series of
dramatic or semi-operas with
substantial musical content,
including King Arthur and The
Fairy Queen. He died in 1695
during the composition of
The Indian Queen, leaving his
brother to complete the work.

Other key works

1691 King Arthur
1692 The Fairy Queen
1694 Come, Ye Sons of Art
1695 Funeral music for
Queen Mary

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