Chapter 37 - Music in London: Henry Purcell
kings were deposed throughout the century, while a civil war broke out between the royalists and those forces supporting the Parliament. By the end of the century, England had established a broadly representative government unprecedented since antiquity The weakening of the royal court - traditionally, the most affluent patron of the arts- had consequences for music as well. While London remained the capital of Eng artistic production
Henry Purcell: the chief English composer of the seventeenth century. He served as organist at the royal court & Westmin. Running gamut of musical theater genres, Purcell was particularly prolific as a compost for the stage, writing incidental music & simple songs for plays, semi-operas, and a fully sung opera. Masque: elaborate courtly entertainment using music, dance, and drama to portray allegorical story that often celebrated the royal family. Semi-opera: spoken play in which the more exotic, amorous, and supernatural moments in the plot were sung or danced.
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas Based on Virgil's Aeneid, it received its first performance in 1689 in a school for girls in London. It narrates the story of the Trojan soldier Aeneas who seduces Dido, queen of Carthage, only to abandon her in order to fulfill his destiny as the mythic founder of Rome. the tale ends with Dido's death, preceded by her famous lament. Ground bass: a bass line that repeats over & over
Ode: multi-movement composition containing instrumental introduction, choruses, duets, and solo aria. English composers traditionally employed this genre when writing for the royal court. Purcell composed twenty such odes, six of which mark the birthday of QUeen Mary. Countertenor: the male falsetto voice. Sang the alto part. Flat trumpet: slide trumpet whose sliding tube extended backward over the player's left shoulder, rather than forward from the right as in the trombone.
Chapter 38 - Music in London: George Frideric Handel
Handel Born in Halle, Germany, at eighteen Handel moved to Hamburg where he played violin & harpsichord in the opera orchestra. There, and later during a four year sojourn in Italy, he absorbed the musical style & theatrical conventions of Italian opera. Finally, he moved to London, where he composed Italian operas, oratorios, ceremonial music for the royal family, and much instrumental music.
Dance suite is a collection of dances almost invariably in binary form all in a single key for a solo instrument or full orchestra. Handel wrote two suites for orchestra, Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, and two collections of eight suites for harpsichords. Water Music: Handel's set of three dance suites featuring the horn, the trumpet, and the flute (in F major, D major, and G major and minor, respectively). It was first performed in 1717 by fifty musicians situated on a
carrying King George I, who had commissioned the work in an effort to improve his standing with his subjects.
French horn: natural instrument (without valves) with a smaller bell, and thus a smaller sounder than the