The Purcell Collection, volume I

Description

A selection of varied pieces by the greatest tunesmith of his generation: there are slow, expressive airs, elegant rondeaux, and manic hornpipes, not to mention the subject of The Young Person’s Guide to the Opera.
Score and part.

Most of the pieces are arrangements that Henry Purcell wrote for the theatre.  He himself arranged many of them for keyboard, and would not have disapproved of what we have done.  Purcell was one of the outstanding melodists of his own, or indeed of any day, and this has much to do with his music’s capacity to endure in many different forms.  As well as the purely instrumental pieces, we have included a couple of songs that work well on an instrument.
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1. Air
2. If Music be the Food of Love
3. Slow Air
4. Air
5. Hornpipe
6. Rondeau
7. Canary
8. Fairest Isle
9. Hornpipe
10. Monkey’s Dance
11. Act Tune
12. Song Tune

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13. Air
14. Jig
15. Scotch Tune
16. Air
17. Act Tune
18. Rondeau
    (As used in Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”)
19. Ground “Crown the Alter”
20. Hornpipe

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