Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Different Instrumentations At the tragic conclusion to English composer Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, Aeneas has been given a message supposedly sent by the god Jove to leave Dido and Carthage and to

In the summer of 1680, Henry Purcell (1659-1695) started to experiment with an older musical form, the fantasia. The basic structure of a fantasia is the construction of several musical phrases, or points, each of which is given a contrapuntal

In his opera King Arthur, the third act starts with a dramatic scene – Emmeline meets Oswald, who is ardently wooing her, but she’s frozen IN terror. Oswald, showing off, whips out his magic wand changes the entirety of England

Besides studying and emulating the works of 20th century composers, Benjamin Britten became increasingly fascinated by English music of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, most notably the music of Henry Purcell. He wrote, “One of my chief aims