Purcell Studies

Edited by Curtis Price

The tercentenary of Henry Purcell’s death fell in 1995, and this volume of specially commissioned essays was collected to celebrate Purcell’s music in his tercentenary year. The essays are representative of the best recent research and deal mainly with the autograph manuscripts, Purcell’s compositional technique, the relationship between Purcell and his teacher John Blow, a reassessment of Purcell court odes, performance practice and wordsetting, and eighteenth-century reception history, particularly regarding King Arthur. The volume is well illustrated with music examples and photographs of important manuscripts.It also analyses Purcell’s compositional techniques through detailed study of his manuscripts and reports on the discovery of two important autograph manuscripts. The book opens with an assessment of Purcell’s illusive personality.

Bibliographic Details

6 b/w illus. 11 tables 82 music examples

Contents

• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction: in search of Purcells character Curtis Price
• 1. Purcells great autographs Robert Thompson
• 2. Purcell as collector of ancient music: Fitzwilliam MS 88 Robert Shay
• 3. Purcells revisions of his own works Rebecca Herissone
• 4. New light on Purcells keyboard music Curtis Price
• 5. Purcell and Roseingrave: a new autograph Peter Holman
• 6. Only Purcell ere shall equal Blow Bruce Wood
• 7. Purcells odes: propaganda and panegyric Ian Spink
• 8. Purcell, Blow and the English court ode Martin Adams
• 9. Continuity and tempo in Purcells vocal works A. Margaret Laurie
• 10. Poetic metre, musical metre and the dance in Purcells songs Katherine Rohrer
• 11. King Arthur exposd: a lesson in anatomy Andrew Pinnock
• 12. King Arthurs journey into the eighteenth-century Ellen T. Harris
• Afterword: a portrait of Henry Purcell Janet Snowman
• Index.