Summary
An opera with instrumental parts for strings, keyboard continuo, plus optional guitar for dances
This edition, with English and German texts, is based on that by Edward Dent (first published in 1925), but includes more recent scholarship. The preface presents a history of the work. The score is both scholarly and practical for performers.
Purcell was the outstanding musician and composer of his time in Britain. Like other seventeenth-century musicians, Purcell's career began in the church, first as a chorister at the Chapel Royal, then as organist at Westminster Abbey composing anthems. At court he enjoyed the favour of successive monarchs composing odes on special occasions, but his works for Mary II are the best known, composed when Purcell was reaching the height of his powers, just before his premature death.
