Purcell: Music For A While

Music composed for the human voice is one of the oldest ways of making music since it doesn’t need any other instruments and we all carry our voices around with us!

In the 17th century vocal music flourished in the churches, royal courts and we also saw the beginnings of opera.

When Charles II became King in 1660, a period known as the Restoration, he brought a new enthusiasm for music and in particular, British music. One of the composers to benefit from this was Henry Purcell (1659-95)

Purcell is considered to be one of Britain’s greatest composers and one of most important of the Baroque period. He composed much of his music for wealthy patrons including members of the royal family. He often worked with the poet John Dryden, who wrote the words for ‘Music For A While'.

‘Music for a While’ written in 1692, is one of many songs composed by Purcell.

It was composed as part of a group of 4 songs, which acted as incidental music for a play by John Dryden called Oedipus. The story is a based on a Greek legend about a king who accidently kills his father and marries his mother. When he discovers what he has done, he gauges his eyes out and then kills himself!

The song is sung to a Furie (a bit like a witch) called Alecto who is able to ‘free the dead from their eternal bands’. Alecto has snakes instead of hair and blood dripping from her eyes. The song is sung to calm or ‘beguile’ Alecto so that the snakes ‘drop from her head’ and the ‘whip from out her hands’ . ‘Music for a While’ is a lament—a song which is melancholic. Another famous lament composed by Purcell is ‘Didos Lament’ from his opera Dido and Aeneas