Henry Purcell wrote the Opera "The Fairy-Queen" (Z.629)
in 1692 as a masque or semi-opera considered a
"Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous
adaptation of William Shakespeare's wedding comedy A
Midsummer Night's Dream. First performed in 1692, The
Fairy-Queen was composed three years before Purcell's
death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score
was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth
century.
Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's text to mus...(+)
Henry Purcell wrote the Opera "The Fairy-Queen" (Z.629)
in 1692 as a masque or semi-opera considered a
"Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous
adaptation of William Shakespeare's wedding comedy A
Midsummer Night's Dream. First performed in 1692, The
Fairy-Queen was composed three years before Purcell's
death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score
was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth
century.
Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's text to music;
instead he composed music for short masques in every
act but the first. The play itself was also slightly
modernised in keeping with seventeenth-century dramatic
conventions, but in the main the spoken text is as
Shakespeare wrote it. The masques are related to the
play metaphorically, rather than literally. Many
critics have stated erroneously that they bear no
relationship to the play, but recent scholarship has
shown that the opera, which ends with a masque
featuring Hymen, the God of Marriage, was actually
composed for the fifteenth wedding anniversary of
William and Mary.
Act IV begins after Titania has been freed from her
enchantment, and contains musical references to the
Four Seasons (Spring; "Thus, the ever grateful spring",
Summer; "Here's the Summer", Autumn; "See my many
coloured fields", and Winter; "Now Winter comes
slowly").
Although this Aria from Act IV ("Now Winter comes
slowly" No. 36) was originally written for Opera, I
arranged it for Woodwind Quintet (Flute, Oboe,
Clarinet, French Horn & Bassoon).
