PURCELL, HENRY (1659-1695), English composer, was born in Westminster. His recent biographer, Dennis Arundell, points out that the statement aet. suae. 24 on the printed edition of his Sonatas in June 1683 places his birth between June and November 1659, Nov. 20, 1695 being the date of his death in his thirty-seventh year. His father Henry Purcell, or Purcell, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, whose eldest son Edward (16J3 1717) became gentleman usher to Charles II., and afterwards distinguished himself in the army, while Henry and Daniel, the two younger sons, became musicians. On his father's death in 1664, Henry Purcell was placed under the guardianship of his uncle Thomas Purcell (d. 1682), also a gentleman of the Chapel and a man of extraordinary probity and kindness. Both he and Henry Purcell the elder sang at the coronation of Charles II. Through his uncle's interest Purcell was admitted as a chorister of the Chapel and was placed under Captain Henry Cooke (d. 1672), "master of the children," an excellent teacher and a com poser of anthems, to whom Pepys makes a number of references in his Diary. On Cooke's death Pelham Humfrey became "master," and he again was an excellent teacher as well as a musician of genius; but as a pupil of Lully he naturally stood for the French school, and in this respect failed to influence Purcell, who took the Italian masters for his models.
Purcell's third and last master was the distinguished composer and organist Dr. John Blow (1648-1708), to whom Purcell's great indebtedness is not always sufficiently realized. In 1673, when his voice broke, Purcell was dismissed with an ex-chorister's salary of £3o a year and presented with certain articles of dress. He was also given the appointment of (unpaid) assistant to John Kingston, keeper of the king's instruments, together with a promise to succeed him. In 1677 he was appointed "composer in ordinary for the violin" in succession to Matthew Lock. Pur cell had been copyist at Westminster abbey since 2677, and in 168o he succeeded Dr. Blow as organist.
The year 168o was the beginning of a period of great produc tivity. In it he wrote the music to Lee's Theodosius, the first of a long series of dramas for which he provided incidental music, and one in which an introductory ritual scene gave him unusual scope; this was followed by D'Urfey's Virtuous Wife. He also produced the first of his court odes or "Welcome Songs" at this date and wrote several anthems, many of which were composed especially for the prodigious basso prof ondo of the Rev. John Gostling (or Gosling), a singer at Canterbury and later at the Chapel Royal, to whom Evelyn alludes as "that stupendous bass."
Either in 168o or the following year he married Frances Peters, and in 1682 his eldest son was born. From 1682 he held the post of organist to the Chapel conjointly with his appointment at the Abbey. His first printed composition was the 12 Sonnatas of III. Parts: two violins and basse: to the organ or harpsichord. These, though avowedly based on Italian models, show great power and originality. Purcell had now become "composer in ordinary to the king" and his official life was a very full one. For each public event he composed an ode or an anthem : some of the finest of these are the ode, "Swifter, Isis, swifter flow" (1681); the "St. Cecilia" odes; the "Fly, bold Rebellion" (in celebration of the suppression of the Rye House Plot, 1683); two anthems written for James II.'s coronation : "0 I was glad" and "My heart is inditing." The Te Deum and Jubilate, written for St. Cecilia's Day was notable as being the first English anthem with orchestral accompaniment. It was performed annually at St. Paul's cathedral until 1712 and in alternate years with Handel's Utrecht Te Deum until 1743. In all his anthems there is a large proportion of in strumental music.
The opera Dido and Aeneas, which above all Purcell's works inspires admiration and affection in an equal degree, was written to a libretto furnished by Nahum Tate at the request of Josiah Priest, a dancing-master who also kept a boarding-school for young gentlewomen, first in Leicester Fields and afterwards at Chelsea. The date of its composition and original performance at the school has been fixed by W. Barclay Squire of the British Museum as about the year 1689. In this work there is no spoken dialogue, but only recitative, and it is characterized from begin ning to end by the dramatic directness which Purcell possessed in so high a degree. Dido's exquisite song of farewell is one of the flawless things in music, classical in form and in its dignified restraint, and yet of rare emotional quality. As is so often the case when he has some poignant emotion to express, Purcell chooses here to build up the song on a "ground," and the relent less reiteration of the bass contributes greatly to the dramatic effect. Graceful dance choruses, lumbering sailor dances and witches' incantations relieve the tragedy, and, avoiding an anti climax after Dido's farewell, the composer ends with a soft and tenderly expressive chorus, "With drooping wings, ye Cupids, come," in which music and words achieve perfect union.