Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695) was an English composer.
His style of Baroque music was uniquely English,
although it incorporated Italian and French elements.
Generally considered among the greatest English opera
composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple
and William Byrd as England's most important early
music composers. No later native-born English composer
approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan
Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin
Britten in the 20th c...(+)
Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695) was an English composer.
His style of Baroque music was uniquely English,
although it incorporated Italian and French elements.
Generally considered among the greatest English opera
composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple
and William Byrd as England's most important early
music composers. No later native-born English composer
approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan
Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin
Britten in the 20th century.
In 1683 Purcell had been the first composer
commissioned to write an Ode to celebrate St
Cecilia’s Day by the newly formed ‘Musical
Society’. On that occasion he produced Welcome to all
the pleasures, notable not only for its great freshness
but also for its wonderfully original string
ritornelli. Nine years later the Society was
flourishing and the ‘Gentleman Lovers of Musick’
once again turned to Purcell to ‘propagate the
advancement of that divine Science’. As Motteux
wrote, ‘A splendid entertainment is provided, and
before it is always a performance of Music by the best
voices and hands in town’. With Hail! bright Cecilia
Purcell excelled himself.
Brady’s poem was derived directly from Dryden’s Ode
of 1687, which was the first to call for obbligato
instruments, and also the first to suggest that Cecilia
invented, rather than simply played, the organ. Most of
Purcell’s Odes were written for the relatively small
forces available at Court, but on this occasion he was
given the opportunity to write for a large group of
performers. Purcell chose to mix large, contrapuntal
choruses with a sequence of airs for soloists and
obbligato instruments. The canzona of the Symphony
contains a fugue on two subjects, and is thematically
linked to the fugato theme which closes the work in
ingenious double augmentation. At the centre of the Ode
comes the powerful chorus ‘Soul of the World!’
closing in ‘perfect Harmony’. Between this and the
large-scale choruses that frame either end of the Ode
come an inspired selection of airs, based around an
extraordinary collection of compositional devices.
‘Hark, each Tree’ is a sarabande on a ground,
whilst ‘Thou tun’st this World’ is set as a
minuet; ‘In vain the Am’rous Flute’ is set to a
passacaglia bass, and ‘Wond’rous Machine!’
splendidly depicts an inexorably chugging machine with
its ground bass and wailing oboes. Perhaps the most
remarkable solo movement is ‘’Tis Nature’s
Voice’ where the recitative is so heavily ornamented
as to make it melismatic arioso. (The score writes
‘Mr Pate’ against this number, but some
commentators have misread Motteux’s report of this
movement, ‘which was sung with incredible graces by
Mr. Henry Purcell himself’, to suggest that Purcell
was the singer, rather than the writer, of those
‘incredible graces’.) With a text full of
references to music and musical instruments, the work
requires a wide variety of vocal soloists and obbligato
instruments. Everywhere we find writing of great
originality, word-setting of the highest calibre, and
music of startling individuality.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Purcell).
Although originally composed for Voices (SAATTBB) &
Mixed Chorus (SATB), and Orchestra, I created this
interpretation of the "Hark! Hark, each tree" from
"Hail! Bright Cecilia" (Z.328 No. 3) for Winds (Flute,
Oboe, French Horn & Bassoon) & Strings (2 Violins,
Viola & Cello).
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