Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell is seen as one of the greatest composers of the Baroque period and one of the greatest of all English composers. His earliest surviving works date from 1680 and show a complete command of musical composition. They include some fantasias for viols, masterpieces of contrapuntal writing, and more contemporary sonatas for violins, which reveal some acquaintance with Italian models. Purcell, in his time, became increasingly in demand as a composer, and his theatre music in particular made his name familiar to many who knew nothing of his church music or the odes and welcome songs he wrote for the court of three different kings over twenty-five years.
To begin to chronicle the life of Henry Purcell is a difficult task as there is not much know of the life of the great composer. In the readings this author has done there seems to be as much assumption as fact in the books that hold the biographies of the life of Purcell. Much of the readings look to the events of the time in relation to what was known about Purcell's life during those times such as assuming what the effects the great Black Plague and the fires in London would have on a young lad, no one explains this better than Runciman.
What we know of Purcell's life is nothing, or next to nothing; what is written as his life is conjecture, more or less ingenious inference, or pure fiction. In that we know so little of him he is blessed, but the blessedness has not as yet extended to his biographers. At one time a biographer's task was easy: he simply to ok the hearsay and inventions of Hawkins, and accepted them as gospel truth whenever they could not be tested.1
What we do know of Henry Purcell is that he was born probably around 1658 to Henry Purcell the elder, a gentleman of the chapel royal and short term choirmaster of the choristers at Westminster Abbey and where his boyhood is concerned we know not much more to say (Holman, Groves). Purcell was however born into a family of musicians sealing
To begin to chronicle the life of Henry Purcell is a difficult task as there is not much know of the life of the great composer. In the readings this author has done there seems to be as much assumption as fact in the books that hold the biographies of the life of Purcell. Much of the readings look to the events of the time in relation to what was known about Purcell's life during those times such as assuming what the effects the great Black Plague and the fires in London would have on a young lad, no one explains this better than Runciman.
What we know of Purcell's life is nothing, or next to nothing; what is written as his life is conjecture, more or less ingenious inference, or pure fiction. In that we know so little of him he is blessed, but the blessedness has not as yet extended to his biographers. At one time a biographer's task was easy: he simply to ok the hearsay and inventions of Hawkins, and accepted them as gospel truth whenever they could not be tested.1
What we do know of Henry Purcell is that he was born probably around 1658 to Henry Purcell the elder, a gentleman of the chapel royal and short term choirmaster of the choristers at Westminster Abbey and where his boyhood is concerned we know not much more to say (Holman, Groves). Purcell was however born into a family of musicians sealing