Henry Purcell - Music for a while

Henry Purcell - Music for a while

1. Music for a while was written for theatre

   • Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was one of the most famous English composers of the Baroque period
   • He wrote a wide range of music, including sacred choral music, chamber music, and incidental music (songs and instrumental pieces to be performed as part of a play
   • Oedipus was a play by the English dramatist John Dryden - it was based on a story by the Greek writer Sophocles. Purcell wrote the incidental music for Oedipus
   • "Music for a while" is the second of four movements that Purcell wrote for Oedipus. It is sung by a priest who is attempting to summon the ghost of a dead king

2. Music for a While has a ground bass

   • This song is written for a singer with continuo. the song was originally written for a high male voice (a tenor or countertenor), but some later arrangements are written for a soprano
     • The continuo is usually ymade up of two instruments - often the cello and the harpsichord, which read from the same bass part. the use and sound of the continuo is a key feature of Baroque music
       • In this song, Purcell uses a ground bass: Ground bass is a repeating melodic phrase in the bass part. In music for a while, the ground bass is three bars long, this is unusual, especially for a piece in 4/4, It would normally be 2, 4 or even 8 bars long
         • The ground bass is frequently chromatic - there is often a rise of a semitone between two consecutive notes. The shape of the melody is generally ascending.
           • The ascending shape of the ground bass is contrasted with the descending shape of the voice part - this is known as contrary motion.
             • The ground bass changes in bar 14 - it no longer follows the pattern shown above. It resumes in bar 29 and then lasts till the end of the piece
               • The quavers in the ground bass continue throughout the song - this is an example of a walking bass in Baroque music

3. Purcell uses word painting and melisma in the vocal part

   • There are a number of examples of word-painting, for instance, in bars 23-25, the short notes sound like raindrops as the singer repeats the word "drop"
   • The word eternal is also melismatic - there are many notes to one syllable. A lot of the rest of the music is syllabic (one note to one syllable), which makes it easier to hear the words.
   • In bars 17 and 18, the music stops (apart from the continuo) for a quaver to emphasise the word "dead".
   • Most of the words and phrases are repeated, which makes them stand out. Purcell also places key words or syllables on the main beats to highlight them further

4. Music for a While is in a minor key

   • The structure of the music is ternaru form, or ABA. Section A lasts from bars 1 to 10 and section B lasts from bars 11 to 28 (where the ground bass changes). Section A is then repeated from 29 and extended with another repetition of the phrase "shall all your cares beguile"
   • The main tonality of the piece is minor - the version you're studying is in A minor (although the original piece was written in C minor). The minor key reinforces the sombre nature of the lyrics
   • It might be a bit hard to identify the key signature because the ground bass is very chromatic, with lots of accidentals. However, there's a perfect cadence in A minor in bars 3-4 that establishes the key signature early on
   • The middle section passes through several closely related keys:
     • E minor in bar 15 (the dominant minor), and E major in bar 28 (the dominant major)
     • G major in the middle of bar 18
     • C major (the relative major) in bar 22
     • A major (the tonic major) in the middle of bar 23
     • A final return to A minor (the tonic key) in bar 29 when the ground bass returns
   • There are quite a few suspensions in this piece. This is where a note is held over a hcnage of chord in order to create dissonance. For example, in bar 17, a D in the vocal part chord (on the word "Alecto") is tied over the bar line and creates a discord against the C in the continuo