English dramatic music

Though operas in English were composed, Venus and Adonis (1684-85) by John Blow (1647-1708) and Dido and Aeneas (1689) by Henry Purcell (1658-96), more important from the English view was incidental music written for plays: Purcell's Dioclesian (1690), King Arthur (1691), The Fairy Queen (1692), The Tempest (1695) and Indian Queen (1695).

Hit tune

Here is the famous lament from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas,

And here is the complete opera.

Here is another example of Purcell's extraordinary song writing.




It's an homage to this:



I had heard of Andreas Scholl, of course, but all the rest was new to me. It is two renditions of "The Cold Song" from Henry Purcell's King Arthur.

This is what they are saying:

What power art thou
Who from below
Hast made me rise
Unwillingly and slow
From beds of everlasting snow

See'st thou not how stiff
And wondrous old
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold

I can scarcely move
Or draw my breath
I can scarcely move
Or draw my breath

Let me, let me,
Let me freeze again
Let me, let me
Freeze again to death
Let me, let me, let me
Freeze again to death...

This is all unbelievably weird and of course cool.

I notice that Scholl has done a whole album of Purcell. There can never be too much Purcell. 

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