Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Excerpts from The Fairy Queen
Odes and Elegies for Queen Mary
Excerpts from The Fairy Queen
[1] Suite from Act III
Symphony while the Swans come forward -- Dance for the Fairies -- Dance for the Green Men --
Dialogue between Coridon and Mopsa (Wilbur Pauley, Peter Becker) -- Dance for the Haymakers
[2] Three songs from Act II
See, even Night herself is here -- I am come to lock all fast (Julianne Baird) -- Hush, no more (Wilbur Pauley, Quartet)
[3] Suite from Act I
Prelude -- Hornpipe -- Air -- Rondeau -- Jig
[4] Two songs from Act IV
Here's the Summer, sprightly, gay (Peter Becker) -- Now Winter comes slowly (Wilbur Pauley)
[5] Suite from Act V
Symphony -- Hark! The echoing air (Julianne Baird) -- Chaconne -- They shall be as happy (Chorus)
Odes and Elegies for Queen Mary
Come Ye Sons of Art
Birthday Ode for Queen Mary, 1694
[6] Overture
[7] Song & Chorus: Come ye sons of Art
James Bowman
[8] Duet: Sound the trumpet
James Bowman, Peter Becker
[9] Symphony & Chorus
[10] Song: Strike the viol
Peter Becker
[11] Song & Chorus: The day that such a blessing gave Wilbur Pauley
[12] Song: Bid the Virtues
Julianne Baird, Marc Schachman (violin)
[13] Song: These are the sacred charms
Wilbur Pauley
[14] Duet & Chorus: See Nature rejoicing
Julianne Baird, Wilbur Pauley
[15] An Ode to the Queen: High on a throne of glitt’ring ore
Julianne Baird, Wilbur Pauley, Frederick Renz (harpsichord), Wendy Gillespie (bass viol)
[16] O Dive custos Auriacae Domus
Peter Becker, James Bowman, Frederick Renz (harpsichord}, Christina Mahler (violoncello)
Julianne Baird, Soprano
James Bowman, Peter Becker, Countertenors Stephen Sturck, Tenor
Wilbur Pauley, Bass
New York Ensemble for Early Music's Grande Bande (Period Instruments)
Frederick Renz, Director
In 17th-century England it was not the custom to ring, down the curtain between the acts of a play or an opera; instead, musical interludes -- were played both to keep the audience entertained while sets were changed and to bridge the moods of the acts. Much of the instrumental music included in the suites taken from acts 3 and 5 of Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen on this recording, comes from these interludes, or "Act Tunes," as they were known.
In the first version of The Fairy Queen, which premiered at the Queen's Theatre in Dorset Gardens in London, on May 2, 1692, there was no music at all in the first act. The four masques were inserted, one each, into the remaining, four acts of this five-act opera with dialogue. The first masque begins at the point where the spirits of Night, Mystery, Secrecy, and Sleep come in at King, Oberon's bidding, and sing, Titania to sleep, after the presentation of a group of fairy divertissements.
The masque in act 3 describes the Fairy Queen Titania's magically induced love for the peasant Bottom the Weaver, who has been adorned with a jackass' head by the Fairy King, Oberon, who has also cast a spell over his wife -- with whom he has quarreled over the ownership of a changeling, boy -- which compels her to fall in love with a humanoid ass. The masque is divided into two scenes. In the first of these, a group of elves portrays the delights and yearnings of love; in the second, the audience is treated to a delightful comic interlude in which the peasant girl Mopsa resists the attempts of her suitor Coridon to
kiss her. The "Dance for the Haymakers" poses textual problems for the performers. Only the upper parts and the continuo line are included in the surviving, original score; there are no middle parts. While those parts may have been left out by mistake, it is equally possible that Purcell deliberately intended the rustic and primitive effect that is conjured up by the simple upper parts and spare bass.
The masque in act 4 is introduced at the point at which King, Oberon and Queen Titania are reconciled after their quarrel and Oberon has taken his revenge on Titania for her stinging, insinuations and accusations. The Fairy Queen summons Phoebus, the Sun God, and the Four Seasons to entertain. The songs of Summer ("Here's the summer, sprightly, gay") and Winter ("Now Winter comes slowly") are portions of the masque in act 4.
The masque in act 5 is certainly the most spectacular of the lot and was designed to provide a grand finish to the opera. In a Chinese garden, a man and a woman -- a sort of Oriental equivalent to Adam and Eve -- sing, of the beauty of their Garden of Eden before the advent of mankind which ruined its idyllic beauty. During, the course of the masque, Juno, the queen of the immortal gods, and Hymen, the god of marriage, both appear and give their blessings to the two pairs of lovers, Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius, who are soon to be united in wedded bliss.
From notes by Edward Copplestone
As concerns structure, technique, style, and form, Come ye sons of art away reveals Purcell's mastery and originality in every bar. The opening, symphony, generally reminiscent of the Lullian overture in plan and proportions, advances far beyond this French master's capabilities in its expressive qualities and imaginative touches. Purcell's Overture begins with three majestic harmonies, leading, to a fourth, to establish a dignified sense of ceremonial procession right from the start. Here there is nothing, of the static quality one finds in Lully's overtures, but rather an impression of irresistible forward progress in the short-coupled, powerful rhythmic motives, linked in antiphony between trumpets and strings, which lead to the Allegro movement that follows. This movement, a lively canzona in alla breve time, develops an elaborate fugal texture on three distinctive motives, before closing, after suitable exposition, with a highly expressive Adagio.
Following, this Overture, a straightforward alto aria in triple time achieves its invitatory function with great vigor and verve, which feeling also characterizes the choral reprise of the same title lines. These serve to introduce a series of character pieces describing and extolling various instruments of music, much in the manner Purcell employed in the great St. Cecilia ode of 1692, Hail, bright Cecilia. The second movement in the tribute to Queen Mary is a duet-on-a-ground, "Sound the trumpet," in
which two countertenors play musical leapfrog in a typical Purcellian competitive duo as they discuss the relative merits of trumpet and oboe for use in celebration of this glorious day. Following a full recapitulation of the opening chorus, with its symphony, another ground bass melody undergirds an aria for tenor, with two recorders, extolling the virtues of viol, harp, and lute, enjoining, all to "sing their patronesses praise" in a manner which once again compares Queen Mary to St. Cecilia. Another chorus is dedicated to the great day being celebrated, which "no common festival should be," to which end all available musical resources are exploited to the full.
This lively acclamation is followed by an evocation of great tenderness and pathos as the soprano soloist, supported by obbligato oboe, sings "Bid the Virtues, bid the Graces to the sacred shrine repair." The quasi-religious tone of the text is beautifully expressed in the music, which recalls the pathetic mood of the Adagio which ended the Overture. The aria owes much of its haunting beauty, however, to the delicate tracery of the soprano and oboe lines, as the instrument echoes, then converses and combines with, the voice in the exquisitely ornate lines Purcell has invented for the text. The attentive listener who knows 17th-century English conventions will appreciate Purcell's subtle double entendre in illustrating the word Graces with elaborate ornamentations, as was appropriate, since the contemporary technical
term for such ornamentation was gracing. Resultant melodic divisions produce startling clashes between the solo and obbligato lines, and these "free dissonances" cause this movement to seem one of the most advanced and experimental arias in all of Purcell's music. Another song-on-a-ground, "These are the sacred charms," introduces the final duet and chorus, "See Nature rejoicing has shown us the way," aptly laid out in rondo form as a concluding dance-chorus after the manner of the ancient Greek ode form.
High on a throne of glitt'ring, ore expresses something of the transcendent quality which is characteristic of Purcell's other tributes to Queen Mary. This is a multisectional cantata, on a poem published in 1690 by Thomas D'Urfey as one of his "New Poems." The piece belongs, in a way, to a far older English musical tradition, extending, back to the time of Queen Elizabeth, when Thomas Morley published his laudatory collection, The Triumphs of Orianna. This book of madrigals was an extensive accolade to Queen Elizabeth, by madrigalists who dedicated their best efforts in the devising of musical compliments to "Orianna" which are similar in spirit to that devised by Purcell for "Gloriana," alias Queen Mary.
uneral. The death of the queen had put an end to the series of bright birthday songs Purcell had written in her honor for each of the prior six years, just at the end of April. However, the three elegies "composed for the late Queen" two by Purcell and one by John Blow -appeared in print in time to commemorate the posthumous anniversary which fell in 1696. These were published by Henry Playford as
Three Elegies upon the Much Lamented Death of our Late Queen Mary, with title page edged in black, as was suitable to the occasion. The duet O Dive custos Auriacae Domus, actually third in the collection, stands as another fine example of the Purcellian "competitive dialogue," in which the voices both imitate and compete with one another in developing a fascinating contrapuntal texture, which is, nevertheless, highly expressive. Set in C minor, Purcell's music invests Henry Parker's somewhat obscure Latin verses with a wealth of meaning and feeling that defies mere analysis of the eloquently interwoven melodic lines, frequent cadencing, and elaborate dissonant treatment which characterizes the whole.
From notes by Franklin B. Zimmerman
Purcell's final tributes to Queen Mary come to us in the form of two elegies composed for her
