Music for a While

Oedipus, title page of the play

Music for a While is a song for solo alto by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell. It is the second of four movements from his incidental music (Z 583) to Oedipus, a version of Sophocles' play by John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee, published in 1679. The song was composed for a revival of the work in 1692.[1]

Music

The voice is accompanied by an instrumental part featuring an ascending ground bass. Additional harmonies would have been supplied by the musicians playing continuo.[2] The Basso Continuo is different in this piece because it is only three bars long, instead of the traditional four.

The piece is also called a dramatic recitative, or a da capo aria.

The voice would originally have been a Castrato, although today it may be a soprano (e.g. Carolyn Sampson) or mezzo-soprano (e.g. Anne Sofie von Otter) counter-tenor (e.g. Andreas Scholl) or tenor (e.g. Mathias Vidal, Howard Crook) [3].

The structure is a ternary form, or ABA1 form, with the first and last sections being almost the same, save for more ornaments being added in the second section. It is in a Stile Italiano, as evidenced by the dotted rhythms in the harpsichord.

Arrangements

The piece exists in multiple arrangements, including for solo keyboard and violin and keyboard. Music for a While is the title of an album of Purcell arrangements released in 2014 by Christina Pluhar.[4]

Information Which May Be Useful For GCSE Candidates

  • The melody line is a combination of conjunct and disjunct notes.
  • Purcell also uses passing notes to create interest.
  • The piece is mainly syllabic, with some melismatic parts, for example 'Wond'ring' and 'Eternal'.
  • The melisma on 'Eternal' is word painting because it emphasises the word eternal.
  • Purcell uses word painting throughout the piece as emphatic techniques. For example:
    • 'All' is repeated 6 times.
    • 'Pains'- chord of D,F and E is dissonant.
    • 'Eas'd'- the complex series of suspensions which then feel resolved suggest the easing of pain.
    • 'Free the dead'- G major key change
    • 'Drop'- descends in pitch.
  • There is a tierce de picardie on 'hands' (bar 28) to introduce the third section.
  • Ornaments used include mordents and appoggiaturas
  • The ornaments in section A1 would not have been written by the composer, but are included by the singer to add interest.
  • Each three bar rising bass accompaniment, characterised by a rising 5th and falling 6th, ends with a perfect cadence.
  • There is also a perfect cadence in bar 21-22, which is in the middle of statement 7. It retains the ambiguous feel of the second section.
  • The key changes are: A minor- E minor- G major- A minor.

Text

The text is

"Music for a while
Shall all your cares beguile.
Wond'ring how your pains were eas'd
And disdaining to be pleas'd
Till Alecto free the dead
From their eternal bands,
Till the snakes drop from her head,
And the whip from out her hands."

The third section repeats the first two lines.

Publication

The piece was published posthumously in Orpheus Britannicus.

Music for a While is also featured as a UK GCSE (9-1) set work.

Recordings

The song is identified with Alfred Deller, the first modern countertenor.[5] He seems to have first recorded it in the 1940s.[6] It also appeared in an Extended Play compilation in the 1950s.

References

  1. ↑ The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell
  2. ↑ North, Nigel (1987). 20for%20a%20while%22&f=false Continuo playing on the lute, archlute, and theorbo Check |url= value (help). Indiana University Press. p. 264. ISBN 0253314151.
  3. ↑ https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/search?search_query=purcell+music+for+a+while
  4. ↑ Kemp, L. "Music for a while: Improvisations on Henry Purcell". Gramophone. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
  5. ↑ Wigmore. "Icon: Alfred Deller". Gramophone. Retrieved 2017-12-09.
  6. ↑ EMFAQ


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.