One of the outstanding musical figures of the Baroque period, Purcell was also the last great English composer before Edward Elgar, some two centuries later. "The Author's extraordinary Talent in all sorts of Musick is sufficiently known", claimed the publisher Henry Playford in the first volume of his series Orpheus Britannicus - an anthology of Purcell's songs issued in 1698 - "but he was especially admir'd for the Vocal, having a peculiar Genius to express the Energy of English Words, whereby he mov'd the Passions of all his Auditors".

We know only a few details of Purcell's life, not even the exact date of his birth in 1659, probably at Westminster, London. As a boy he was a chorister in the Chapel Royal. After his voice broke he spent a year as an unpaid assistant to the royal keeper of instruments before being hired to tune the organ at Westminster Abbey in 1674; and for a time he also copied organ parts. In 1679 he was appointed organist at Westminster, which provided him with a house as well as a regular salary. In 1682 he became one of three organists of the Chapel Royal, which also entailed singing in the choir; and from the end of 1683 he had a further appointment as organ maker and keeper of the king's instruments. In 1683 he dedicated his Sonnata's of III Parts for two violins, bass viol and continuo to King Charles II. His royal appointments were renewed in 1685 by Charles's successor to the throne, James II, for whose coronation Purcell not only provided music, but also presided over the building of a new second organ for the Chapel Royal. Just four years later, for the coronation of William III, he again provided music and another new organ, and his appointments were again renewed. Shortly after that he seems to have become embroiled in a dispute with the chapter of Westminster: Purcell had, for reasons unknown, neglected to turn over promptly the money he had collected for places in the main organ loft. The last royal occasion for which he provided music was the funeral of Queen Mary, eldest daughter of James II, in 1694. On 21 November 1695 Purcell died, aged only 36. Five days later, he was buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey; the funeral music was sung by the combined choirs of the Abbey and the Chapel Royal. With the exception of a handful of songs and anthems, Purcell's earliest surviving works date from 1680. The string fantasias in particular demonstrate a level of compositional mastery that would be unthinkable without years of experience. Apparently in his own day Purcell was far better known for his theatre music than for his church music. The reopening of London theatres during the Restoration period of the Stuarts set the stage for a boom in production. Opera, however, had yet to establish itself in England. Purcell's only fully-fledged, all-sung opera, the masterpiece Dido and Aeneas, was performed only once in his lifetime as far as we know, in 1689 by the "young gentlewomen" of a Chelsea boarding-school. "Experience hath taught us that our English genius will not relish that perpetual singing", wrote a popular librettist in 1692, shortly after the performance of Dido and Aeneas, and the taste of the time was for adaptations of early 17th-century works by outstanding playwrights such as Shakespeare, Dryden and Fletcher, - which offered ample opportunity for the addition of song, dance and instrumental inserts, up to two hours of music, dubbed "semi-operas" by a contemporary of Purcell. A magnificent example in this genre is The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Harvey Sachs

Biographical notes (c) 1996, reprinted by permission of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

A selection of major works:

Orchestral: Chaconne in G minor, March and Canzona for the Funeral of Queen Mary II, Sonata for Trumpet and Strings, Suites.

Chamber: Fantasias, Overtures, Pavans, Sonatas, Trumpet Tunes.

Instrumental solo: Airs, A Choice Collection of Lessons, Hornpipes, Voluntaries.

Vocal: Anthems, Songs.

Choral: Birthday Odes, Motets, St Cecilia's Day Odes, Te Deum and Jubilate.

Stage works: Abdelazer (incidental music), Dido and Aeneas (opera), The Fairy Queen (semi-opera), The Indian Queen (semi-opera), The History of Dioclesan (semi-opera), King Arthur (semi-opera).