2. Henry Purcell
Born in London 1659
Died: 1695
Music was the Purcell family business - and Henry followed in the footsteps of his father, uncle and brother as a court musician centered around Westminster in London.
Purcell worked as Organist at Westminster Abbey, and in the Chapel Royal and Whitehall Palace, as organist and court composer for the violins.
Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell, is England's oldest opera.
As an opera composer, Purcell is considered one of the great “might-have-beens”.

3. Purcell & Opera
Henry Purcell had a reputation as “having a particular genius to express the energy of English words”.
However, his career coincided with a period in which opera repeatedly failed to establish itself as an art form in England in the late 1600s.
Fifteen years after Purcell’s death, an opera-mania (since unrivalled) swept through London, and the young baroque composer HANDEL enjoyed huge success with his succession of Operas in England.

5. As far as we know it was first performed in 1689, at a girl's school in Chelsea, London, run by a Mr Josias Priest, who was a dancing master.
Maybe it's because the show has a little something for everyone (especially everyone on the high school drama team): a passionate love story, wild dance numbers, special effects, even a chorus of witches. Most importantly, the moving music that Henry Purcell created for this mythological love story creates a tale that anyone can relate to: whether you're suffering your first heartbreak in 7th grade, or you're a professional singer performing before an audience of thousands.

6. Who was Henry Purcell? Create a short bio of the composer
Background of Dido and Aeneas. When was it composed, first performed, orchestration, what impact did it have? Why is like high school musical?
Outline the characters and synopsis of Dido and Aeneas

7. Composer. Dido and Aeneas is a tragic opera in three acts.
Written by Henry Purcell based on Book IV ‘The Aeneid by Roman poet Vergil.

8. Background story.
Aeneas is the Trojan prince who was the mythological founder of rome.
He was one of the few Trojans that survived the fall of Troy.
He flees his home to find a new one with a fleet of men named the ‘Aeneads.’
They go on a journey.

9. Story.
Eventually After wandering for six years Aeneas and his set foot on land in Carthage.
Dido the queen of Carthage meets Aeneas.
They fall in love… And eventually married.
Evil witches plot Dido’s destruction.
Aeneas gets deceived by an evil spirit(s).
He continues on his journey to found new troy.
Aeneas commits suicide.

10. Information. This opera was composed in 1689, 17th century.
First performed at Josias Priest's school in Chelsea, London, 1689.
Orchestration: 1st Violin, 2nd Violin, Viola, Cello, Basso Continuo/ Harpsichord.

11. Context
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas lasts for an hour and was performed in 1689 written to celebrate the joint coronation of William and Mary in the same year.
It is a mythical tale about the love between Dido (Queen of Catage) and Aeneas (Prince of Troy)
Evil tricks Aeneas into leaving Dido in order to fulfill a duty to free his homeland
This piece is taken nearer the end when Dido is preparing for her suicide

12. Orchestration Violin I Violin II Viola Cello
Basso Continuo/ Harpsichord

13. ACT 1 THE STRUCTURE OF THE OPERA SCENE 1 DIDO’S PALACE
Each scene or section has its own key, and the choice of key Purcell makes for each section is significant to the plot of that particular scene.
ACT 1
SCENE 1 DIDO’S PALACE
Introduction of Dido C MINOR
(Dido reluctant to show her feelings)
SCENE 2 DIDO’S PALACE
Arrival of Aeneas C MAJOR
(Belinda is optimistic and encouraging. Emotion triumphs over reason and destiny.)

14. ACT 2 (The one you kind of don’t need to know but kind of do…..)
SCENE 3 A CAVE
Witches Evil Plot F MAJOR
(The witches plan to destroy the happiness of Dido & Aeneas)
SCENE 4 DIDO’S PALACE
The Hunt D MINOR/MAJOR
(Thunder ends the hunt early. As other characters leave for shelter, the Witches’ “Mercury” appears and tells Aeneas to leave.)

15. ACT 3 SCENE 5 Harbour Sailors Depart Carthage Bb MAJOR
(The witches also revel in the success of their plan.)
SCENE 6 DIDO’S PALACE
Dido’s Death G Minor
Dido dies.

16. Recitative vs Aria Comparison of Musical Elements
‘Thy hand, Belinda’ and ‘When I am laid in earth’ portray the desperate state of mind
that results in Dido’s suicide.
Together they make up the kind of recitative-aria pair characteristic of Baroque opera.
Listen to both and decide where each statement fits

19. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas, Act III, Dido’s Lament and Chorus
● ‘Thy hand, Belinda’ and ‘When I am laid in earth’ portray the desperate state of mind that results in Dido’s suicide
● Together they make up the kind of recitative-aria pair characteristic of Baroque opera
● The former, which is relatively short, moves the action forward, with a brief text set without repetition in something approaching speech rhythm.
● In the latter, Dido reflects at length on her plight. She begs that her ‘wrongs [may] create no trouble in [Belinda’s] breast’ and that she will be remembered but her dreadful fate (betrayal and death) forgotten.
Dido’s Lament - is considered the masterpiece of the opera

20. ‘Thy hand, Belinda’
Like many Baroque recitatives, this is for one singer (Dido, a soprano) with continuo accompaniment.
The continuo accompaniment is shown just as a figured bass – that is, as a single bass part, played by a single string instrument, with figures underneath to indicate the type of chord required at each point

21. Word Painting
Justin Timberlake's song "What goes around" is another popular example of text painting. The lyrics descend an octave and then return to the upper octave, as though it was going in around in a circle. 1.37
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
In the chorus of Up Where We Belong, the melody rises during the words "Love lift us up where we belong.”
In Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah, the lyrics exemplify word painting. The lyrics and chord structure fall in sync with one another
"It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift."

22. Word Painting and Melodic Shape
A composer’s most direct tool for word painting is melodic shape
Words are set to melody in two ways, syllabic and melismatic.
Syllabic is the most common. With one note per syllable of text, it emphasizes clarity and flow.
A melisma is more than one note sung on a single syllable. This expressive device highlights certain words and enhances their emotional impact.
Melismatic text setting is a special expressive choice. When a composer writes a melisma on a word, the clarity of that word can be partly or even greatly obscured as the shape of the melody takes prominence over the natural flow of the text. A fine composer will use melismas in important moments
Melismas offer performers great opportunity for personal expression.
Purcell writes exquisitely complex melismas to color key words such as “darkness,” “pity,” and “sorrows.”

23. Word Painting
Melisma - an ornamental phrase of several notes sung to one syllable of text) – Think Whitney Houston – I will always love you! Or Christina Aguilera

24. What Musical Features does Purcell use to express the text?
Grief
Inevitable fate
Despair
Anguish
Desolation
Misery

25. WORD PAINTING Thy hand, Belinda; darkness shades me.
On thy bosom let me rest;
More I would, but Death invades me;
Death is now a welcome guest.

26. WORD PAINTING Thy Hand Belinda
‘Darkness’ and ‘Death’ which is presented with a descending chromatic line symbolic of death and half-step movement (sigh motive) (Up to ‘Death is now’ (bar 7) the vocal melody falls from C to D (a minor 7th),
Largely syllabic recitation, but still with some melismas (“darkness” extended like a miasma “bad air” around her)
The closing notes – slightly higher and now with a prominent F sharp – match the grimly positive words ‘a welcome guest’.
Short detached phrases and silences suggesting sighing 
Jagged rhythms and the melodic line slowly descending to a 7th to reach 'death'

27. WORD PAINTING When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create
When I am laid in earth – Dido’s Lament
When I am laid, am laid in earth,
May my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;
Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

28. WORD PAINTING ctd When I am laid in earth – Dido’s Lament
Emotional, slow-moving aria
‘Laid’ – also given a descending chromatic line portraying death and agony
‘Remember me’ – presented in syllabic text setting and repeated with it’s last presentation leaping in register with sudden crescendo displaying her desperate cry with urgency as she prepares for her fate: death
Rising vocal line pushes away and cadences overlap (elide) until Dido “meets” her fate at the joint vocal and ground bass cadence (“forget my fate”)

29. Tonality ‘Thy hand Belinda’
Minor Key as befits the text - G minor –key of grief
Ambiguous tonality
Unusual key changes and chromaticism
Dissonances-Bar 12 tritone
‘When I am laid in earth’
Again tonality is minor.
G minor throughout - Such insistence on one minor key is immensely effective in underlining the tragic dramatic situation.
Variety and colour are provided by the chromatic (semitonal) descents in the ground bass these intensify the mood still further.
string parts are very dissonant, helping to illustrate Dido's extreme anguish.

30. Tonality
Opening of aria, with 2 statements of the ground bass. Descending chromatic scale also adds to the desperate mood
Fate motive?
Underlies her final words to Belinda
As Dido completes her requests her vocal line coincides with the bass chromaticism-she dies.
Only then is the full chromatic scale heard.

32. Harmony Rhythm Dynamics ‘Thy Hand Belinda’
Purcell’s harmony is highly expressive of grief and pain, with striking dissonances and chromaticism superimposed on a mostly simple harmonic vocabulary, with many triads in root position and first inversion
Grinding dissonances between bass and vocal line
Rhythm
‘Thy Hand Belinda’
Note the more complex rhythm on ‘dark-(ness)’
Short rests separate a series of short phrases (bars 3-7), presumably to suggest Dido’s sobbing as she decides to take her own life.
Dynamics
Remember me! Repetition and louder dynamics for emphasis

33. Chorus – ‘With drooping wings’
With drooping wings you Cupids come, To scatter roses on her tomb. Soft and Gentle as her Heart Keep here your watch, and never part.

34. Chorus – ‘With drooping wings’
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR:
Polyphonic texture in imitation between the voices.
Falling melisma on “drooping wings.” (an ornamental phrase of several notes sung to one syllable of text) – Think Whitney Houston – I will always love you! Or Christina Aguilera

35. Chorus – ‘With drooping wings’
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR:
Repeated melodic “sigh” on word “soft.”
Rhetorical pauses in last line, with repeated words for emphasis.

36. Stay Prince and hear

37. Write your own definition of ‘Word Painting’
RECAP
Write your own definition of ‘Word Painting’

38. RECAP
What musical features does Purcell use to express the text in Dido’s Lament?

39. RECAP
Rhythm
Harmony
Tempo
Tonality
Melody
Dynamics

41. Melody Tonality Key of G minor - Grief
‘Remember me’ – presented in syllabic text setting and repeated with it’s last presentation leaping in register with sudden crescendo displaying her desperate cry with urgency as she prepares for her fate: death
High note on ‘remember me’ then falling melodic shape. The second section begins with outbursts on d’’; the line continues to hover around this note until on the third and last ‘remember me’ it leaps to the high g’’, then to descend diatonically through the octave to the song’s starting point
The ground bass falls chromatically from the tonic to the lower dominant in a minor key- a device portraying sadness
The melody is in fragments to suggest that Dido is struggling to continue because of her despair. Short, detached phrases with silences to suggest sighs
Dissonances can be heard between the bass and vocal melody, as well as between the bass and string parts. The purpose of the dissonance is deliberate in helping to illustrate Dido’s extreme anguish at this tragic part of the opera.
Tonality
Key of G minor - Grief

42. Harmony Tempo Rhythm Dynamics Other
Purcell’s harmony is highly expressive of grief and pain, with striking dissonances and chromaticism superimposed on a mostly simple harmony and chords
Dissonances between bass and vocal line
Tempo
Slow moving – Slow moving strings
Rhythm
The melody is in fragments to suggest that Dido is struggling to continue because of her despair. Short, detached phrases with silences to suggest sighs
Dynamics
Remember me! Repetition and louder dynamics for emphasis
Other
At the end she breaks off before instruments do.

43. WORD PAINTING ‘Laid’ – also given a descending chromatic line portraying death and agony Rising vocal line pushes away and cadences overlap (elide) until Dido “meets” her fate at the joint vocal and ground bass cadence (“forget my fate”) text painting on the world “trouble” with a tritone, an interval carefully avoided in the Renaissance, but now part of the forward-striving energy that drives tonality

44. ELTON’S LAMENT or Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
Apart from the hair, what musical links can you find between Dido’s Lament and Elton’s Lament

45. ELTON’S LAMENT or Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
Key of G minor
Repeated Ostinato pattern played several times under the text
Ostinato Pattern Begins on G
Chromatic Descending Bass Line – A way of setting a very sad text

46. Elton John and Basso Ostinato

49. Aria- "Ah, Belinda” – Ground Bass
Based on four bar ground bass (providing a structural link to "When I am laid in earth")
The ground bass lasts 4 bars, throughout the song the bass is played 21 times
Listen to the vocal phrases and how they relate/coincide with the Ground bass line
Ah! Belinda, I am prest
With torment not to be Confest,
Peace and I are strangers grown.
I languish till my grief is known,
Yet would not have it guest.

50. Aria- "Ah, Belinda” – Ground Bass
Key – Mostly C minor – suitable for ‘complaints and all subjects of lamentation’ – depicts anguish and tragedy of Dido’s situation
What makes it interesting is it’s relation with the phrases of the melody line which change in length
Because of the varying phrase length the vocal phrases overlap ground bass. This makes it more interesting/ less repetitive.

51. Aria- "Ah, Belinda” - Purcell’s treatment of Phrase Structure
The 1st phrase, like the ground, is 4 bars long but begins after the ground, remains out of sync.
WP - "Ah!"- sigh effect, suspension, not on the main beat.
Ah! Belinda, I am prest
With torment not to be Confest,

52. Aria- "Ah, Belinda” - Purcell’s treatment of Phrase Structure
The 2nd phrase, longer in text, begins also on 2nd bar of ground but is squeezed (‘prest’) into only 3 bars (just one way of how Purcell choose to portray the word), and cadences with the bass.
The shortening of the second phrase to 3 bars lends weight to the word ‘prest’ as the notes are literally pressed into a smaller space WP
"torment" descending, melismatic, negative
Low range eg Torment 
"I am press'd" Melismatic, rhythmically unstable- state of mind is fragile at this point.
Ah! Belinda, I am prest
With torment not to be Confest,

53. Aria- "Ah, Belinda” – Peace and I
2:00
Note: the pitch of the first 4 notes in the vocal line are the same as the bass
The bass and vocal line imitate each other ending out of syncronization thus heightening the meaning of the word ‘peace’
As Dido and Peace become strangers, so the melody line and the ground bass grow apart, which were together in the previous phrase
Peace and I are strangers grown.

54. Aria- "Ah, Belinda” – Word Painting
2:39
During its repeat Dido’s ‘languishing’ is accentuated through a long melisma which descends down with semitone sighs and serves to emphasise the meaning of the word
Ah! Belinda, I am prest
With torment not to be Confest,
Peace and I are strangers grown.
I languish till my grief is known,
Yet would not have it guest.

55. Aria- "Ah, Belinda”
Find examples in Ah Belinda, where the dissonance of the melodic line against the ground bass bass illustrates the meaning of the text (ie. is a good example of word painting)
‘Peace and I’ - Look at the relationship between the melodic line and the bass line. How does it illustrate musically Dido’s estrangement with peace?
Find an example of chromaticism in the melodic line which is used for dramatic effect to convey melancholic feelings (another example of word painting)

56. Other Examples of Word Painting
SCENE 1 – Shake the Cloud – Sung by Belinda to cheer Dido up Shake the cloud from off your brow, Fate your wishes doth allow, Empire growing, pleasures flowing, Fortune smiles and so should you From the very first word of the opera Purcell sets the word to music by word painting using a dotted rhythm lending a ‘shakiness’ to the word ‘shake’ Also notice the melisma on ‘flowing’

57. Other Examples of Word Painting
ACT 1 – Dido in Denial
Recitative- "Grief Increases”
Begins as a duet between Dido and Belinda.
Short, 1 bar phrases suggest Dido is struggling with her conscience.
Sense of an argument created, especially by the lyrics "then let me speak".
At this point, the words are not focusing on Dido's emotion but on the "secure" state of Carthage, so the music moves to G major
Chorus- "monarchs unite"
Returns to C minor
This is an example of musical irony, as the words are positive. Perhaps it foreshadows the tragic events to come.
Uses homophonic (voices moving together in harmony) texture to create a sense of agreement between the characters.
Talking about the importance of united monarchs/ nation.

58. BELINDA
Grief increases by concealing,
DIDO
Mine admits of no revealing.
Then let me speak; the Trojan guest
Into your tender thoughts has prest;
The greatest blessing Fate can give
Our Carthage to secure and Troy revive.
CHORUS
When monarchs unite, how happy their state,
They triumph at once o'er their foes and their fate.

59. Other Examples of Word Painting
SCENE 1 – No. 5 Whence could so much virtue spring – Recitative – Dido reveals she has feelings for Aeneas and paints a picture of a brave yet sensitive, hero Whence could so much virtue spring? What storms, what battles did he sing? Anchises' valour mixt with Venus' charms How soft in peace, and yet how fierce in arms! Purcell colours words such as ‘Storm’ and ‘Fierce’ with forte melisamas. These contrast with ‘soft’ with it’s p marking and descending semitone. Sudden contrast
Anchises – Father of Aeneas
And lover of Venus in Roman Mythology

60. PAST EXAM QUESTIONS
How successful is the music of Dido’s two songs (Act I and Act III) in expressing her feelings?

61. PAST EXAM QUESTIONS
How does Purcell’s music for the soloists in Dido and Aeneas express the meaning of their words? llustrate your answer by close discussion of examples.

62. PAST EXAM QUESTIONS
Many operas and musicals end with the death of one or both lovers. Discuss a range of examples (from any period or tradition) to show how music can contribute to the emotional impact of such scenes

63. PAST EXAM QUESTIONS
What is meant by ‘word-painting’? Illustrate your answer by reference to examples from more than one period or tradition.

64. Useful Links http://paulwest.weebly.com/dido-and-aeneas.html