Purcell - Classical Loops - Loopsound - Royalty Free Music

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Purcell was one of the greatest composers of the Baroque period and one of the greatest of all English composers. His earliest surviving works date from 1680 but already show a complete command of the craft of composition. They include the fantasias for viols, masterpieces of contrapuntal writing in the old style, and some at least of the more modern sonatas for violins, which reveal some acquaintance with Italian models. In time Purcell became increasingly in demand as a composer, and his theatre music in particular made his name familiar to many who knew nothing of his church music or the odes and welcome songs he wrote for the court. Much of the theatre music consists of songs and instrumental pieces for spoken plays, but during the last five years of his life Purcell collaborated on five 'semi-operas' in which the music has a large share, with 'divertissements', songs, choral numbers and dances. His only true opera (i.e. with music throughout) was Dido and Aeneas, written for a girls' school at Chelsea; despite the limitations of Nahum Tate's libretto it is among the finest of 17th-century operas.