Description
Book SynopsisAddressing established scholars and advanced students of Purcell, this book proposes the first analytical approach to Purcell's music to be based on examination of his compositional methods alongside historically contemporary theory. It will be of interest to analysts and music theorists of seventeenth-century music, and of early music.
Trade Review'This book documents a remarkable achievement. It not only offers direct insights into the creative processes of a great composer on a technical level, but also succeeds in getting, as it were, into his skin as he faced compositional problems - something not previously attempted in the case of Purcell (and all too rarely accomplished for any composer).' Bruce Wood, Bangor University
'Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell represents a step-change in the emerging musicological sub-discipline of historically informed analysis. By introducing the contemporary notion of 'artificial' composition - in which the composer incorporated intricate imitative devices to provide creative satisfaction for both composer and performer - Howard unravels with remarkable clarity the hidden compositional techniques lying behind Purcell's inventive strategies in both his instrumental chamber music and his later large-scale vocal works. The book provides a set of historically sensitive analytical tools that have the potential to transform the reader's understanding of some of Purcell's greatest masterpieces.' Rebecca Herissone, University of Manchester
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Purcell's 'Art of Descant': 1. In counterpoint: sources and analysis; 2. Artifice, Fugeing and fantazia; 3. 'The chiefest instrumental musick now in request': canzonas and other sonata fugues; 4. 'The power of the Italian notes': Purcell's sonatas as and in reception; Part II. 'Thou Didst Thy Former Skill Improve': 5. 'Celestial art[ifice]' in Hail, bright Cecilia; 6. Artifice and musical modelling; 7. Augmentation as artifice, artifice as augmentation; 8. 'Italian sonatas in orchestral garb'.
