Henry Purcell - Biography
Henry Purcell, who is widely considered to be the greatest of English composers, was born sometime in mid-September of 1659 in Westminster (now part of London) and died there on November 21st, 1695. His parentage is unresolved with relationships disputed. Most likely he was the son of Henry Purcell, the master of choristers of Westminster Abbey. Others suspect Thomas Purcell, another composer who is usually assumed to be Henry Purcell’s older brother.
Despite his murky family history, it is known that the young Henry was admitted to the Westminster Abbey choir at age nine and remained there until his voice broke at fourteen. While a chorister, he studied he studied music with first Henry Cooke and then Pelham Humpfrey. After Humphrey died in 1674, Purcell studied with the famed composer John Blow and started to compose his first works including incidental music for the plays The Libertine and Epsom Walls. One of the best of his earlier pieces is Ode to the Death of Matthew Locke (a well-known composer at the time).
The primary work for an English composer of the time was to supply incidental music for plays and to supply choral anthems and odes for religious and secular events. Not surprisingly, then, this was to comprise the core of Purcell’s musical output. Purcell was able to obtain a good position in 1680 when Blow resigned as the organist of Westminster Abbey and recommended his protégé Purcell. One of his finest instrumental works was the set of Fantasias for Strings that were written in 1681. During this period, Purcell also composed incidental music for the plays Theodosius and the Virtuous Wife.
Purcell married in 1682 and soon after had a son. That same year he also assumed an additional prominent position when he was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal. The origins of his most famous work, the chamber opera Dido and Aeneas, are obscure but it is believed that it was written during this period. Its first known public performance was by a girl school’s cast who performed it in a Chelsea theatre in 1689.
Purcell continued to compose many odes and anthems. One of the better known was the sacred anthem, I Was Glad. Purcell continued to alternate his choral music with theatre music, collaborating with one the most celebrated English writers of the period, John Dryden, for Tyrranick Love (1687) and Amphitryon (1690). In addition, he composed incidental music for Thomas D’Urfey’s The Fool’s Preferment, as well as the semi-opera, Dioclesian (1690). He also wrote by royal command anthem “Blessed are they that fear the Lord” (1688) during this period.
The last six years of Purcell’s life were to be his most productive as he composed one masterful work after the other. It was a tumultuous time for England as the Catholic King James II was forced to flee for France in 1688. He was succeeded by his Protestant daughter, Mary II, and her husband, William of Orange. For Purcell, despite the turmoil, it was something of a golden era. His works from this time include a series of masques, King Arthur (1691), The Fairy Queen (1692), Indian Queen (1695), The Tempest (1695), the famed ode, Come ye Son of Arts (1694), and the incidental music to the Abdelazer or the Moors Revenge (1695), The Old Bachelor (1691), The Richmond Heiress or A Woman Once in the Right (1691) among many others. He also wrote a famed ode for Queen Mary II’s birthday as well as her funeral – gaining general fame when arranged for synthesizer by Wendy Carlos for Stanley Kubrick’s film, A Clockwork Orange.
Though Purcell’s primary fame was as a vocal composer, he wrote many superb keyboard works and chamber works that include superb sonatas, dance pieces, fantasias for string orchestra including and the well-known The Gordian Knot Unty'd (1691). He also, for his own amusement, wrote many Tavern Songs that were often pretty bawdy. Ultimately, his oeuvre includes 24 odes, many anthems, traditional liturgical works, Te Deums, Magnificats and other choral works based on the Catholic Latin liturgy.
Purcell is one of the great composers who died young. He died on November 21st, 1695 at 36 for reasons that are unclear. The myth was that he was inadvertently locked out of his house coming home late from the theatre. In all probability he had a previous lung ailment that was aggravated by exposure to the elements. His teacher and friend John Blow wrote a tribute to him with his Ode on the Death of Purcell with a text by Dryden.
Purcell presents a difficult case – although demonstrably a great composer, the music he composed reflects and is bound by the conventions of a bygone era. Since his death, the most famous piece attributed to him, Trumpet Voluntary, turned out actually to be the work of his contemporary, Jeremiah Clarke. His odes are often filled with jingoistic and bombastic texts that date them. Similarly, his brilliant theatre music was mostly composed for plays that have long disappeared from the stage. The conventions of the nineteenth and twentieth century concert life had no easy place for Henry Purcell to fit in.
Despite these apparent hindrances, the recording process, along with the renaissance of British music of the 1940s, had a potent effect on the reassessment and revival of Purcell’s music. One important factor in elevating Purcell’s stature was the passionate advocacy of the great English composer, Benjamin Britten. Another factor was an independent English record label, L’Oiseau Lyre, who (starting in the 1950s) methodically recorded Purcell’s works. The pioneering work of the celebrated British counter tenor and conductor Alfred Deller should also be acknowledged. And finally, in the CD era, the Hyperion and Harmonia Mundi labels recorded virtually all of Purcell’s important works. Now, the huge bounty of Purcell’s work can finally be appreciated.
