hotankles:

purcell, 12 sonatas in three parts, no. 1, in g minor, z. 790

goodness this opening and this movement and this entire first sonata, but this whole collection is just so good and one of the scores on IMSLP is so clear. 


i guess i never realized how much earlier in music history purcell was. i always place him alongside bach and handel in my head, but they were only 10 years old when purcell died. 
i guess he wrote these sonatas when he was 24; his wife had just died the year before. before i went to bed last night i was browsing around online and saw somewhere that he wrote these sonatas to take care of some debt of his wife. i don’t know how credible that it is. 

either way, i love this sonata and want to know more about these sonatas. i may actually have the summer free if i quit my job in the next few weeks,  which is looking very likely and would be INCREDIBLE. AHHH! 

commorientes:

Mark how readily each pliant string - Henry Purcell

Breath-takingly modern.  Utterly amazing.

Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and the Beat” performed in a Baroque style, arranged by Steve Pycroft, and performed by countertenor Robin Blaze and the University of York Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, conducted by Peter Seymour BBC Radios.

Broadcast live by BBC Radio 3.

theperksofbeingagaykid:

Miserere Mei - Henry Purcell

Please just listen to this.

It’s so short, but it’s also incredibly gorgeous.

You will not be sorry :)

Another beautiful Baroque choral piece. 

beauty-thatmoves:

“Once, twice, thrice I Julia try’d” by Henry Purcell.

This is what you play someone who thinks all music written before 1950 is innocent and cute.

Once, twice, thrice, I Julia tried, 
The scornful puss as oft denied, 
And since I can no better thrive. 
I’ll cringe to ne’er a bitch alive. 
So kiss my Arse, disdainful sow! 
Good claret is my mistress now.

My favourite composer, everyone. 

hadrianestou:

Henry Purcell: O solitude, my sweetest choice, Z. 406 | Andreas Scholl (by Oedipus Coloneus)

classicalmusicconfessions:

I think harpsichords are among the most beautiful-sounding instruments ever.
Submitted by anonymous

(x)  

Studying to the beautifulness. 

unariaalgiorno:

Aria: When I Am Laid in Earth
act 3 scene 6 Dido’s Lament
Opera: Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (1688, Z. 626)
Performer: Simone Kermes (coloratura soprano)
Orchestra: MusicAeterna and The New Siberian Singers
Conductor: Teodor Currentzis
Album on iTunes

+++

“Dido’s Lament” is the commonly used name for the noted aria, “When I am laid in earth”, from the opera, Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell (libretto by Nahum Tate).

It is included in many classical music textbooks on account of its exemplary use of ground bass. The conductor Leopold Stokowski wrote a transcription of the piece for symphony orchestra.

“Dido’s Lament” has been performed or recorded by artists far from the typical operatic school, such as Klaus Nomi (as “Death”), Ane Brun and Jeff Buckley. It has also been transcribed or used in many scores, including the soundtrack to the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (renamed “Nixon’s Walk”) and as the main theme to Downfall. It is played annually (by a military band) at the Cenotaph remembrance ceremony, which takes place on the Sunday nearest to November 11 (Armistice Day) in London’s Whitehall.

The opening recitative secco, “Thy hand, Belinda”, is accompanied by continuo only. Word painting is applied on the text “darkness” and “death” which is presented with chromaticism, symbolic of death.

“Dido’s Lament” opens with a descending chromatic line, the ground bass, which is repeated eleven times throughout the aria, thus structuring the piece in the form of a ciaccona. The meter is 3/2 in the key of G minor. Henry Purcell has applied word painting on the words “laid”, which is also given a descending chromatic line portraying death and agony, and “Remember me”, which is presented in a syllabic text setting and repeated with its last presentation leaping in register with a sudden crescendo displaying her desperate cry with urgency as she prepares for her fate: death. In one interpretation Dido’s relationship with Aeneas is portrayed in this moment as an “apocalyptic romance.”

Libretto:

Recitative:

Thy hand, Belinda, darkness shades me,
On thy bosom let me rest,
More I would, but Death invades me;
Death is now a welcome guest.

Aria:

When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;
Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

The music forms the basis for the opening movement of the Fourth Symphony, ‘Chiaroscuro’ (itself entitled Illumination) by the American composer Gloria Coates.