Henry Purcell (Oxford Studies of Composers)

This exhaustive survey of Purcell's music has been published to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the composer's death. It explores in detail the historical context of Purcell's music, dealing with the institutions he worked for, the origin and development of the various genres to which he contributed, and the sources of his music. In the process, a new picture of Purcell's creative personality emerges: a composer obsessed with formal counterpoint, extraordinarily well-versed in English music of the previous century, yet eager to embrace up-to-date features of the Italian style in the 1680s.