Book contents
- Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell
- Musical Performance and Reception
- Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Music Examples
- Abbreviations
- Glossary of Analytical Terms
- Introduction
- Part I Purcell’s ‘Art of Descant’
- Chapter 1 In Counterpoint: Sources and Analysis
- Chapter 2 Artifice, Fugeing and Fantazia
- Chapter 3 ‘The chiefest instrumental musick now in request’: Canzonas and Other Sonata Fugues
- Chapter 4 ‘The power of the Italian notes’: Purcell’s Sonatas as and in Reception
- Part II ‘Thou dost thy former skill improve’
- Bibliography
- Index of Compositions
- General Index
Chapter 2 - Artifice, Fugeing and Fantazia
from Part I - Purcell’s ‘Art of Descant’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2019
- Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell
- Musical Performance and Reception
- Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Music Examples
- Abbreviations
- Glossary of Analytical Terms
- Introduction
- Part I Purcell’s ‘Art of Descant’
- Chapter 1 In Counterpoint: Sources and Analysis
- Chapter 2 Artifice, Fugeing and Fantazia
- Chapter 3 ‘The chiefest instrumental musick now in request’: Canzonas and Other Sonata Fugues
- Chapter 4 ‘The power of the Italian notes’: Purcell’s Sonatas as and in Reception
- Part II ‘Thou dost thy former skill improve’
- Bibliography
- Index of Compositions
- General Index
Summary
One way we can get at the kinds of creative strategies Purcell employed in his most contrapuntally intricate music is to examine it alongside contemporary theoretical writings, including his own. This chapter, then, is principally concerned with the establishment of a methodological basis for the analysis that follows later. This basis is unfolded in three parallel strands: the examination of theoretical texts by Purcell and his immediate contemporaries, the situation of these within the wider context of Restoration cultural discourse, and the analysis of Purcell’s music in the light of the insights gained from both. It culminates in a more detailed study of the first part of one of Purcell’s most accomplished fantazias, with the aim of recovering the composer’s working methods through a careful analysis of his use of counterpoint, or fugeing, as he called it in ‘The Art of Descant’.
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- Compositional Artifice in the Music of Henry Purcell , pp. 35 - 74Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019