Talk:Henry Purcell

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Educational assignment[edit]

This article is about to be edited as part of an educational assignment by Union University (of Jackson, Tennessee). This is being discussed here. --Kleinzach 06:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Organist at Westminster Abbey[edit]

At different points the article says Purcell was appointed organist in 1676 and 1679 (when Blow resigned in Purcell's favour). This seems like a discrepancy to me. Also, if he was born in 1659, how could he have been 22? --Robert.Allen (talk) 04:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the occupation for the earlier date to "copyist" per 1911 Britannica, which states that "organist" is erroneously given in other sources. This is also in better agreement with the article in New Grove 2, which states he became organist in 1879. I am going to delete the reference to his being twenty-two in 1879, since the birth date provided in the article does not agree with this conclusion. If Runciman presents good evidence for an earlier birth year, then this should be incorporated into the lead, and the reference to "twenty-two years old" can be reinstated. But New Grove 2 says it was probably 1659. I don't have access to Runcilman. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:41, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Runciman was first published in 1909 (OCLC 5690003), so he is not a a credible source for birthdate information, when compared to New Grove 2. --Robert.Allen (talk) 06:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of date mistakes[edit]

I notice that the dates given in the article for his "early" theatre music seem to have been taken from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica:

...in 1676 he was appointed copyist at Westminster Abbey,.[1] and in the same year he composed the music to John Dryden's Aureng-zebe and Thomas Shadwell's Epsom Wells and The Libertine. These were followed in 1677 by the music to Aphra Behn's tragedy, Abdelazar, and in 1678 by an overture and masque for Shadwell's new version of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.

The problem is this is completely contradicted by Holman and Thompson. "Henry Purcell (ii)," Grove Music Online which gives the following dates for these pieces:

  • Aureng-zebe 1694
  • Epsom Wells 1693
  • The Libertine 1695
  • Shadwell's version of Timon of Athens 1695
  • Abdelazar 1695

Note that the Grove dates are also the Zimmerman catalogue dates. The Britannica mistake may have come from assuming that the music was composed for the premieres of these works, when in fact, it appears to have been composed for later performances. I suspect the article is riddled with these sorts of inaccuracies. Voceditenore (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. that's the likely explanation. I'm planning to overhaul our coverage of Purcell in 2010, probably with the help of a couple of other editors, but you should change those dubious dates for now. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 14:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken out the above passage entirely (leaving in only ...in 1676 he was appointed copyist at Westminster Abbey.) but anyone can put it back. It would have been too difficult to integrate it where it belongs (well after Dido and Aeneas) without rewriting that whole section on Later career and death which is also full of inaccuracies in light of modern research. Definitely time for a re-vamp. Acccording to Grove the only significant theatre music before Dido and Aeneas was Lee's Theodosius (1680) and D'Urfey's A Fool's Preferment (1688) plus one song each for The Sicilian Usurper (1680), Sir Barnaby Whigg (1681), The English Lawyer (1684–5), and Cuckold-Haven (1685). Voceditenore (talk) 15:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation[edit]

We seem to have a minor disagreement over pronunciation of his name (no surprise there -- I've heard it done several ways, and I listen to US and British announcers both). The current choices seem to be: pronounced /ˈpɜrsel/ or pronounced /ˈpɜrsəl/; the second is referenced. I've heard both. Comments? Include both? Include the referenced one only? Antandrus (talk) 01:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The second. I don't see how it can be pronounced the first way: accent on 1st sylable AND "sel"? No way. I have not heard it other. Emdelrio (talk) 02:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't even notice the accent. To the anon (86.--) -- did you perhaps mean to put the accent on the second syllable? That is alternate pronunciation I have sometimes heard. Antandrus (talk) 02:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Emdelrio. I don't see how that pronunciation is possible. My copy of Percy Scholes' Oxford Companion to Music says Purcell should be "Pur-cell (not Pur-cell, as sometimes wrongly pron. in U.S.A.)". So Scholes agrees with the version we already have. I could try to dig out Jonathan Keates' bio and see what he says but I'm not sure where my copy is at the moment and I'm not sure it's worth the effort when we have two sources telling us to use what we already have. --Folantin (talk) 09:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've got the reference right in front of me (John C. Wells, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary p. 568-569. It's a very authoritative source, even if the article on John C. Wells is dire.) The source gives 'pɜsəl as the pronunciation in British English and 'pɜrsəl as the one in American English. Both are accented on the first syllable, the only difference being the /r/ used in the American pronuciation. He also gives a second pronunciation set as pɜ'sel (BE) and pɜr'sel (AE) with the accent on the second syllable in which case /ə/ → /e/, but specifically states that the first set is the standard one used for the composer in BE and AE.
Note that the dictionary gives no preference to British over American pronunciations in terms of correctness, it simply states the standard pronunciation in each. So do with that what you will.
In Hopkins's poem the accent must be on the first syllable. I think this is what most people called Purcell say. Putting it on the cecond syllable is a bit pretentious.Seadowns (talk) 12:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly, I think these IPA renderings of the name in the lede are a bunch of clutter, useless to the vast majority of people who don't know the IPA. At most in a case like this it belongs in a footnote and both BE and AE renderings should be given. Purcell's nationality has nothing to do with it, and in any case, we have no idea how he pronounced his name, but I suspect he'd use the /r/. In the 17th century, almost all British accents were still rhotic, hence the "r" in the spelling. But who knows what syllable he accented? Better to stick with how it's pronounced today in BE and AE. Voceditenore (talk) 11:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've just found out what Keates says about "Purcell": "Stressed on the first syllable (the 'el', which picked up a doubling somewhere along the line, is simply a diminutive suffix), the word means 'little pig', porcel, not unlike the old name 'porcelet' given to the common woodlouse." (Jonathan Keates, Purcell: A Biography, Boston: Northeeastern University Press, page 13) --Folantin (talk) 11:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Urban legend would have it that the second syllable accent dates to a 1950's TV ad campaign for Persil, a British soap. In any case, the Oxford Companion to Music is almost certainly wrong about its being a regionalism; a friend of mine quite recently heard it from a (British) guide at Westminister Abbey. To someone seeing it in print only, purCELL just seems more plausible: as a child I was shocked the first time I heard PURcell from a (Californian) adult. IIRC, there is a commemorative verse unambiguously showing the first syllable pronunciation at the time of his death. Sparafucil (talk) 00:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Plagiarism[edit]

The sentence "After his death, Purcell was honoured by many of his contemporaries, including his old friend John Blow, who wrote An Ode, on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell (Mark how the lark and linnet sing) with text by his old collaborator, John Dryden." in this part of the article is almost verbatim the same as the text on this page: "After his death, Purcell was honoured by many of his contemporaries, including his old friend John Blow, also a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, who wrote "An Ode, on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell--'Mark how the lark and linnet sing' with text by his old collaborator, John Dryden." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quincunx 2.71 (talk • contribs) 05:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Using the Wayback Machine, the chapelroyal.org biography first appeared on 7 March 2012. The text you are questioning first appeared in our article in December 2005 in this revision, by Makemi. Antandrus (talk) 05:27, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Works?[edit]

It seems odd that other than the footnote to a list of compositions, there is no section talking about the broad genres of compositions in which Purcell was active. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Lead[edit]

Can the lead perhaps say more about Purcell and his music, instead of running a list of famous others? I don't think the others even belong in the body. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No objections. One or two might deserve mention in the main body. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:33, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Style"[edit]

No reason at all to not discuss this here - in fact I have taken the liberty of copying your post to my user talk page to the head of this thread! --Soundofmusicals (talk) 05:13, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I thought it better to discuss here rather than the tp, as this is a grammar issue.
'Purcell's style was a uniquely English form of Baroque music.'
This is wrong, as it uses a noun (uniquely English form of Baroque music) to describe Purcell's style. Ignore the adjectives that describe the music and you'll see what I mean. You need an adjective to describe 'style' and there isn't one.
It seems you might be confused by the possessive 'Purcell's'?
'Jonathan's was a particularly delicious lunch'. The subject is 'Jonathan's lunch'. The sentence is good. At the moment, you would have it say 'Jonathan's style was a particularly delicious lunch'. Please don't restore the error. 'Purcell's was a uniquely English form of Baroque music' is good. Including 'style' is a mistake. NEDOCHAN (talk) 08:22, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]


We are still flapping around making unnecessary and indeed nonsensical "grammatical" distinctions - there is no reason whatever why a noun cannot be in apposition (joined to another word by part of the verb "to be") with either an adjective or a noun. e.g. "John is an Englishman" is just as "grammatical" (from either a traditional or transformational point of view) as "John is fat". The point here is that we are talking very specifically about Purcell's style rather than (for instance) his emphasis on vocal or instrumental genres - or other aspects of his musical output.Soundofmusicals (talk) 01:22, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be concerned with what is sometimes call "elegant variation" - we want to avoid clumsy repetition of the word "style" or "stylistic" if we can do so without changing the meaning. In this case "form of Baroque music" stands as a clear (and utterly grammatical) synonym for "Purcell's style". We could perhaps cut the "stylistic" from the allusion to French and Italian music of Purcell's time - but "stylistic elements" is so much clearer and more specific in this context than just "elements" that it should probably stand.--Soundofmusicals (talk) 05:36, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, does cutting the first "stylistic" actually make it clearer after all? -Soundofmusicals (talk) 06:55, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, you have simply got this utterly confused. You can't say 'Purcell's style was...music'. I've explained clearly above. Purcell's style was music :-) I'll rewrite it.

NEDOCHAN (talk) 08:37, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have rewritten it so it now makes sense. Because you see you can't describe Purcell's style as music.NEDOCHAN (talk) 08:50, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your example above doesn't work by the way. You're effectively arguing that 'John's nationality is Englishman' makes perfect sense. John's hair was darkness. His breakfast was excellence. Anyway it's clearer now, although less elegant imo.NEDOCHAN (talk) 11:31, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Add Dido's Lament from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3[edit]

GOTG 3 had Dido's Lament during Rocket's flashback. It ended after the High Evolutionary said "Incinerate them" Nathanlong3010 (talk) 06:04, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Purcell's music is used in many films, tv series etc. and I don't think that this particular example is worth including. Mikenorton (talk) 11:03, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Britannica1911 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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