The Fairy Queen In Full Score

The Fairy Queen In Full Score
Author: Henry Purcell
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0486411907

Based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and reproduced from an early authoritative score, this work features all the fine qualities of this great English composer — wonderful invention, keen dramatic instinct, and lively characterizations.

English Dramatick Opera, 1661–1706

English Dramatick Opera, 1661–1706
Author: Andrew R. Walkling
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1315524201

English Dramatick Opera, 1661–1706 is the first comprehensive examination of the distinctively English form known as "dramatick opera", which appeared on the London stage in the mid-1670s and lasted until its displacement by Italian through-composed opera in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Andrew Walkling argues that, while the musical elements of this form are crucial to its definition and history, the origins of the genre lie principally in a tradition of spectacular stagecraft that first manifested itself in England in the mid-1660s as part of a hitherto unidentified dramatic sub-genre, to which Walkling gives the name "spectacle-tragedy". Armed with this new understanding, the book explores a number of historical and interpretive issues, including the physical and rhetorical configurations of performative spectacle, the administrative maneuverings of the two "patent" theatre companies, the construction and deployment of the technologically advanced Dorset Garden Theatre in 1670–71, the critical response to generic, technical, and ideological developments in Restoration drama, and the shifting balance between machine spectacle and song-and-dance entertainment throughout the later decades of the seventeenth century, including in the dramatick operas of Henry Purcell. This study combines the materials and methodologies of music history, theatre history, literary studies, and bibliography to fashion an entirely new approach to the history of spectacular and musical drama on the English Restoration stage. This book serves as a companion to the Routledge publication Masque and Opera in England, 1656–1688 (2017).

Musical Creativity in Restoration England

Musical Creativity in Restoration England
Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2013-10-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1107292328

Musical Creativity in Restoration England is the first comprehensive investigation of approaches to creating music in late seventeenth-century England. Understanding creativity during this period is particularly challenging because many of our basic assumptions about composition - such as concepts of originality, inspiration and genius - were not yet fully developed. In adopting a new methodology that takes into account the historical contexts in which sources were produced, Rebecca Herissone challenges current assumptions about compositional processes and offers new interpretations of the relationships between notation, performance, improvisation and musical memory. She uncovers a creative culture that was predominantly communal, and reveals several distinct approaches to composition, determined not by individuals, but by the practical function of the music. Herissone's new and original interpretations pose a fundamental challenge to our preconceptions about what it meant to be a composer in the seventeenth century and raise broader questions about the interpretation of early modern notation.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell
Author: Rebecca Herissone
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 558
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 131704326X

The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell provides a comprehensive and authoritative review of current research into Purcell and the environment of Restoration music, with contributions from leading experts in the field. Seen from the perspective of modern, interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship, the companion allows the reader to develop a rounded view of the environment in which Purcell lived, the people with whom he worked, the social conditions that influenced his activities, and the ways in which the modern perception of him has been affected by reception of his music after his death. In this sense the contributions do not privilege the individual over the environment: rather, they use the modern reader's familiarity with Purcell's music as a gateway into the broader Restoration world. Topics include a reassessment of our understanding of Purcell's sources and the transmission of his music; new ways of approaching the study of his creative methods; performance practice; the multi-faceted theatre environment in which his work was focused in the last five years of his life; the importance of the political and social contexts of late seventeenth-century England; and the ways in which the performance history and reception of his music have influenced modern appreciation of the composer. The book will be essential reading for anyone studying the music and culture of the seventeenth century.

The Fairy Queen

The Fairy Queen
Author: Henry Purcell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 83
Release: 2014-05-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107634121

First published in 1931, this book presents the text of Thomas Purcell's opera The Fairy Queen, which was performed in this form as an acted adaptation at the New Theatre, Cambridge from 10-14 February 1931. Purcell based his opera on A Midsummer Night's Dream and this version was altered to incorporate more dialogue from Shakespeare's play in place of changes made by an anonymous librettist in 1692. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Purcell and Shakespeare.