Classical Music | Ensemble Music

Henry Purcell

Suite from Dido and Aeneas Play Play

Baroque Band	Ensemble
Jennifer Lane	Mezzo-soprano
David Schrader	Harpsichord

Recorded on 06/06/2009, uploaded on 10/02/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Suite from Dido and Aeneas Henry Purcell

Overture, Ah Belinda, Fear no danger, Triumphing dance, Prelude for the witches, Echo dance of Furies, Prelude to Act III, Sailor's Dance, The Witches' Dance, Thy Hand Belinda, When I an laid in earth, With drooping wings

Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas is surely a perfectly contained and composed opera, the only such work by Purcell to be sung throughout (Dioclesian, The Fairy Queen, and King Arthur all include spoken dialogue). Purcell's three main influences are apparent throughout the work: the native English style, obtained with his own fine ears and the help of Matthew Locke and others, French dances and Itali-anate recitative (recitative was relatively new to England. It seems that the Italian style, which spread to Germany like wildfire in the early seventeenth century, was heard only in a few performances in England before the commonwealth, which effectively interrupted the absorption of any theatre music). Ms. Lane sings selections from two roles this evening: that of Dido and that of the ultra-wicked Sorceress. Dido, of course, is the ill-fated Queen of Carthage, in love with Anneas, the hero, who is fated to leave her. In particular, Dido's touching lament at the end of the opera shows Purcell at his best: the magnificent harmony, in its dissonance and general busy-ness, reminds us of the highly ornamented decorative style of Charles II and the time of William and Mary. Many later editors of this music felt obligated to "bowdlerize" harmony into something more mild and modern, so unusual are the harmonies of this lament. The sorceress is a general incarnation of nasti-ness—she outlines the duties of her henchpersons in her opening recitative, "wayward sisters." David Schrader