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H Purcell: 'Music for a While' (Tempo, Metre and Rhythm (No tempo…
H Purcell: 'Music for a While'
Background information and performance circumstances
Composer: Henry Purcell
Baroque composer
Became organist at Westminster abbey
Started composing as a young boy
Best known for writing the opera Dido and Aeneas
2nd of 4 movements`
Play based on the story of Sophocles' Oedipus
The song depicts the story of and aids the idea of Electo being told to calm down
Performing forces and their handling
Was written for voice
And continuo
What we listen to is scored for
Soprano
Harpsichord
Elaborate realisation
Highly decorative
Frequent dotted rhythms
Ornamentation which would have been improvised
Upper and Lower mordents
appogiaturas
Grace notes
Chords are frequently arpeggiated or spread rapidly from the lowest to the highest note
Left hand of the harpsichord plays the ground bass
Bass viol
Plays the ground bass
Look at this instrument
Has been transposed from the original C minor to A minor
Text setting and word-painting
Syllabic mainly
Paired slurring
Bar 5
Melismatic moments
Bar 10
Extended melisma
Bar 20- 'eternal'
Repetition of text
Word Painting
Melody
Soprano voices covers a range of a ninth
Conjunct or stepwise
Passing notes are frequent
Rests are used to break up phrases
Some descending sequences
Extensive ornaments
Trills
Appoggiaturas
Lower and Upper mordents
Grace notes
Structure
Features of ground bass structure
Ground bass structure
Melodic parts above change
Short recurring melodic pattern in the bass that acts as a principal structural element
3 bars long
Quaver rhythms
Arpeggio based melodic shape
Semitone intervals
Rising line
At the end of the octave there is a characteristic fall of an octave
Ground sounds incomplete as it ends on the V chord
The ground bass is heard 4.5 times in the tonic key
Then it modulates in Bar 14
Using motifs from the original ground bass
Signs of ternary form
A ground bass in ternary form
Texture
Melody and accompaniment/ Melody- dominated homophony
Accompaniment provided by ground bass in the left hand of the harpsichord and the bass viol
Right hand of harpsichord and provides elaborate realisation
Some counterpoint with the vocal line
Tonality
A minor
At bar 23
However is sometimes ambiguous due to chromatic and non- diatonic nature of the ground bass
Central section modulates to closely related keys
E minor
Bar 14
G major
Bar 16
C major
Bar 21
A major
Bar 23
E minor
Bar 27
Tonic- A minor key
Bar 28 to the end
Modulations are confirmed by perfect cadences
Harmony
Chords
Diatonic
Functional
Perfect cadences
Suspensions
Occasionally
Dissonance
Infrequent
But few examples
on the words 'pains'
False relation
Tempo, Metre and Rhythm
No tempo indication
But slow tempo would be appropriate
4/4 quadruple time
Wide variety of rhythms
Quavers and semiquaver are predominant
Occasional syncopation
Offbeat rhythms
Dotted rhythms
Extensively in right hand
Ground bass is entirely in quavers