Henry Purcell was a British composer who was born in Westminster, United Kingdom on September 10th, 1659. His father was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, where musicians for the royal service were trained, starting Purcell’s earliest education as a chorister. In 1673, Purcell’s voice began to break causing him to be appointed to assist John Hingston, keeper of the King’s instruments, whom he succeeded in 1683. From 1674 to 1678 Purcell tuned the organ at Westminster and was employed there in 1675 to 1676 coping organ parts of anthems. In 1677 he succeeded Matthew Locke, another British composer, as the composer for Charles II’s string orchestra. Purcell studied with Dr. John Blow and succeeded him as organist of Westminster Abbey. Dr. Blow …show more content…
recognized his greatness when he died by writing a noble Ode On The Death of Purcell. In 1682 he was appointed as one of the three organists of the Chapel Royal. He retained all his official posts through the reigns of James II and William III and Mary. He was married in either 1680 or 1681 and had at least six children, three of which died in infancy. His son Edward also became a musician. Purcell spent most of his life in Westminster Abbey. A fatal illness prevented him from finishing the music for the operatic version of John Dryden and Sir Robert Howard's verse tragedy “The Indian Queen”, which was eventually completed by his brother Daniel after the death of Purcell. He died in his house in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, on November 21st, 1695 of tuberculosis. He was buried underneath an organ in Westminster Abbey. He left behind a widow and three sons. His widow died in 1706 and published a number of his works. Purcell was best known as a songwriter because so many of his songs were printed in his lifetime and reprinted again and again after his death. Purcell has over 50 works of music. His first good work as a composer was an instrumental work which was a series of fantasias, a musical composition with a free form and often an improvisatory style, that became highly popular. Purcell only wrote one full opera that was entitled Dido and Aeneas which was supposedly designed for a girls' school where it was performed. It was a tragedy about Dido's final lament before she kills herself. Nahum Tate created the libretto which follows the model for such compositions established by Monteverdi 80 years before. Other works of Purcell were a hybrid form of opera which is now known as semi-opera, combining spoken drama with a musical element that in the concert hall may be performed apart from its wider dramatic context.
These semi-operas include King Arthur, with a text by the poet John Dryden, a work that includes interesting music for a chorus full of cold people, frozen by the Cold Genius but were thawed out by love. The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, includes a fascinating and inappropriate Chinese masque, while The Tempest, again based on Shakespeare, includes songs and dance music. Purcell provided music, dances and songs for many plays, including Aphra Behn's Abdelazar or The Moor's Revenge, a rondeau from which provides the theme for Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. Purcell created numerous amounts of church music. Purcell provided verse anthem and full anthems for the Church of England. The anthems offered musical interest like in My Heart Is Inditing. Other sacred vocal music included Latin psalm Jehovah as well as poems by contemporary writers. Purcell’s secular vocal music includes a number of odes for the feast of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and a number of welcome songs and other celebrations of royal occasions. He wrote an abundance of solo songs, which offer a particularly rich repertoire, exemplified by ‘Music for a while’, from the play Oedipus. Purcell's greatest work was a song ,Te Deum and …show more content…
Jubilate, written for St. Cecilia's Day in 1694. It was the first English Te Deum ever composed with orchestral accompaniments. The song was so ahead of its time that the work was annually performed at St. Paul's Cathedral until 1712. Soon after creating this work he died. Before his death he got to compose a anthem for Queen Mary II's funeral. A Purcell Club was founded in London in 1836 for promoting the performance of his work, but was dissolved in 1836. In 1876 a Purcell Society was founded, which has done a great job in publishing new editions of his work. Henry Purcell has done quite a few things in his lifetime even though it was a very short life.
The fact that he has been through a life of tragedy and success only shows how you can do anything with talent and a drive. His works of music allowed people to enjoy different sounds whether it is secular vocal music, instrumental music, or church vocal music. He brought all elements together which is why he is still remembered until this day. In my opinion Purcell’s music sounds old-time but I understand why because he was in the era of baroque, the era following Renaissance, making his sound very eccentric. Henry Purcell was one of the great composers to offer music that was able to last through multiple generations and continues to grow thanks to the help of people who love baroque music. I personally do not like baroque music because it usually only deals with instruments and I am the type of person who enjoys vocal music rather than instrumental music. I think if someone modern decided to use baroque music they would not be as popular because baroque music is a little odd. Without Henry Purcell sharing his music the era of baroque would not have influenced people the way that it did. Music lets people express themselves and Henry Purcell did just
that.
His death marked the end of Baroque music. Bach left a music legacy. His music has been studied and continues to be studied by several generations of composers and musicians.
Hermia , Lysander , Helena and Demetrius represent young love in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream . They are potrayed as foolish and fickle , acting like children and requiring a parental figure to guide them . The parental figures are Hermia’s father , Egeus , and figuratively Theseus , the mortal ruler , and Oberon , the mystical ruler.
Edward Benjamin Britten is an iconic figure of 20th-century British classical music. His works range from orchestral and chamber compositions, to full operas and other vocal music. Some scholars view Britten’s operatic works as masterpieces, and applaud him for his sincere ability and interpretation of theme, characterization, and melodic contour. An opera that is taken from an already whimsical Shakespearean play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is of valuable evidence that Britten embodied a rare type of ingenuity when composing for the stage.
One of his very famous pieces of work was The Rite of Spring, last year in band class we had to write a paper about that marvelous performance. That was one of his greatest pieces that he ever wrote. That was a piece that he had worked very hard at for a long time.
William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream utilizes the technique of multiple characters playing leading roles. The fairy character Puck stands out as a dominant and leading role in the play. Puck is the best fit for the role of the protagonist because he is mischievous and therefore, has the ability to change the outcome of the play through his schemes and actions. As the protagonist, Puck is responsible for creating the major conflict that occurs between the four lovers throughout the play. This is important because the play focuses on the lives and relationships of the lovers. In addition, because of Puck’s interaction with these characters, his actions throughout the play, alters the final outcome. Finally, Puck’s relationship with all the mortals in the play, his connection to his fellow fairies, and the bond he has with his boss, King Oberon make him the best choice for a protagonist.
King Henry VIII’s interest in music started at a young age. As stated before, he received a music education throughout his childhood and he became accomplished at the organ, lute, and virginals. As king he employed no fewer than 58 musicians in his court. He owned 56 keyboard instruments, 20 horns of various sorts, 19 bowed string instruments, 31 plucked strings, and no fewer than 220 wind instruments of various kinds. He understood that music and art should be an...
Breaking the fourth wall, or, penetrating the audience’s suspension of disbelief, demonstrates the way that actors and playwrights throughout the ages have honed the power of literature. Speaking directly to the audience as a way to encourage a realistic interpretation, despite physical accuracy or on stage representation, creates a mindset that transforms the play into an objective work of art, and a lens through which the audience can view themselves and the world around them. The specific rhetorical strategies that Shakespeare uses in both Puck’s epilogue in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Chorus’ speeches in Henry V, act to place the imaginative labor of realistic interpretation onto the audience, while encouraging appreciation for both
The fact that his contemporaries gave him many awards proves that he was one of the greatest composers of his time. Still, the strongest point in proving his greatness is that fact that he was able to adapt to the changes around him. By his own admission, "...an entirely new public for music had grown up around the radio and phonograph. It made no sense to ignore them and to continue writing as if they did not exist. I felt that it was worth the effort to see if I couldn't say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms." His success in changing to the times speaks volumes about his ingenuity. Many people have an extremely difficult time dealing with
...portantly, through his own music, which a majority of people still listen to during this very time, despite the progress of music over the centauries. Therefore, in conclusion, while Johann Sebastian Bach may not have been some great King or noble of some sort, he was an extraordinary and unforgettable composer and organist of Germany and devoted himself to his greatest passion, music, in order to further the influence of his culture, so that others may carry such cultural ways with them and into future generations such as our very own, where even Bach has yet to be forgotten.
The Baroque period was filled with the new idea that every issue had two sides. Great thinkers and masterminds left behind the idea that the world was either god- influenced or science-influenced. Most people embraced this notion, with the exception of a few. Johann Sebastian Bach was one of these few people. Bach, although the greatest composer of the Baroque period, led a life based on tradition and past influence, which left him virtually ignored for many years after his death.
If we look very closely we will see that the love is a not just
Joseph Haydn was a composer born in Rohrau, Austria in 1732. He was the son of a wheel maker, whom taught himself how to play harp on an amateur and recreational basis. His family was musically inclined and Haydn was immersed in music since his early childhood as they made it a family affair to sing together and at times even along with neighbors. His father appreciated Haydn’s fine vocal ability and recognized that Rohrau was not an ideal place for Haydn to develop his musical skills. He was fostered under the care of their relative Johann Matthias Frankh at his request around the age of six, never to return home. Frankh was a schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg. It was under Frankh’s care that he grasped the rudiments of music and was able to learn how to play the violin and the clavier. Karl Georg Reutter, choirmaster at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, also appreciated his singing. Reutter scouted Haydn as a choirboy and took him to Vienna, where he stayed for the next nine years and earned himself tuition in violin, clavier, and in singing. Haydn’s voice naturally “broke” around 1749 and was consequently dismissed by St. Stephens, leaving him penniless and homeless in the streets of Vienna. He couldn’t have been any place better in the world being a broke musician than in Vienna, where aristocratic families demanded fine musicians for their courts. He freelanced taking several odd jobs to scrape by; he mentored children, played violin for street bands and took the time to teach himself composition. He made a name for himself and first caught the attention of Count Ferdinand Maximillian von Morzin in 1759 and thus gained steady employment at his court. His tenure there was short-lived and the Count’s orchestra disbande...
The Baroque time was filled with musical geniuses. People like Franz Josef Haydn, George Frideric Handel, and Claudio Monteverdi. All of these people were amazing when holding an instrument, sitting at a piano, or writing on manuscript paper, but the finished products were and always will be superb. Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi were among these musical prodigies.
Shakespeare wrote his acclaimed comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream more than a thousand years after Apuleius’ Roman novel, The Golden Ass. Although separated by thousands of years and different in terms of plot and setting, these works share the common theme of a confused and vulnerable man finding direction by relying on a supernatural female. One of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s many subplots is the story of Bottom, a comical figure determined to be taken seriously in his production of a Pyramus and Thisbe. As Bottom becomes caught up in a quarrel between the king and queen of the fairies, the commanders of the enchanted forest where Bottom and his players practice, the “shrewd and knavish sprite” Puck transforms his head into an ass’ s and leads him to be enthralled in a one night stand with the queen, Titania. (2.1.33) Apuleius’s protagonist Lucius endures a similar transformation, after his mistress’s slave girl accidentally bewitches him into a donkey, leaving him even without the ability to speak. Although Lucius’ transformation lasts longer and is more severe, he and Bottom both undergo similar experiences resulting from their animal forms. Lucius’ suffering ultimately leads him to salvation through devotion the cult of Isis, and Bottom’s affair with Titania grants him clarity and a glimpse into similar divine beauty. Ultimately, both asinine characters are saved through their surrender to the goddesses.
Throughout history literature has changed into many different forms and styles, it has also stayed the same in many different ways, literary techniques and elements are key to a good piece of writing, a perfect example that shows us just this is in, A Midsummer Nights Dream, where we will further explore the different literary elements that were used most notably the plot. The plot of a story lays out the foundation and the background for the entire play to come, we'll compare and contrast this element and look at the different sub elements which are produced. We will define similarities and difference in these elements form both the play o the film. Taking a look at things such as climax, play incidents, and the conflict will all give us a better understanding of how it affects the similarities and difference of the film versus the play.