Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell (* September 10, 1659, Westminster; † November 21, 1695, London) is considered the most significant composer of the English High Baroque. He gained his first musical experience as a choirboy in the Chapel Royal and gradually worked his way up the hierarchy. In 1674, he became organ tuner at Westminster Abbey, three years later Composer of the Violins at court, and finally, in 1679, organist of Westminster Abbey himself. Purcell rose to organist of the Chapel Royal in 1683 and became royal instrument keeper in 1683. With this, his political and social career was complete, and he could concentrate on his musical work. Henry Purcell became particularly important for the development of English Baroque opera and the so-called semi-operas, a typically British hybrid form with a lot of spoken text and musical interludes. He also composed incidental music, cantatas, catches and songs, odes and welcome songs, chamber music, anthems, church music, and keyboard works. Highlights of this repertoire include his three- to five-part sonatas for string instruments (1680–95), which, in the style of consort music by William Byrd, for example, perfect polyphony in a harmonically sophisticated guise. Among his stage works, the opera "Dido and Aeneas" (1689) and the five semi-operas stand out as particularly successful works. For the latter, Henry Purcell drew on both works by William Shakespeare ("The Fairy Queen," 1695; "The Tempest," 1695) and collaborations with contemporaries such as the poet John Dryden. With him, he created "King Arthur, or the British Worthy" (1691), which featured distinct satirical elements. From today's perspective, Henry Purcell appears as the most important English stage composer of the era before George Frideric Handel.