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Purcell Annotated Score

This Baroque aria features a melody-dominated homophonic texture with no tempo or dynamics markings. The ground bass repeats in a 3-bar pattern throughout in A minor. Ornaments like mordents, grace notes, and trills are common. The vocal melody contains word painting through techniques like dotted rhythms, melismas, and descending sequences. Key areas explored include A minor, E minor, G major, and C major.

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student.riya.palsingh
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41 views4 pages

Purcell Annotated Score

This Baroque aria features a melody-dominated homophonic texture with no tempo or dynamics markings. The ground bass repeats in a 3-bar pattern throughout in A minor. Ornaments like mordents, grace notes, and trills are common. The vocal melody contains word painting through techniques like dotted rhythms, melismas, and descending sequences. Key areas explored include A minor, E minor, G major, and C major.

Uploaded by

student.riya.palsingh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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No written dynamics or articulation—would only have terraced dynamics at most (loud or

soft) The slurs in the vocal melody show melismas.


Texture is melody-dominated homophony
No tempo markings—slow tempo. 4/4 metre.
Stays the same throughout. 3-bar Introduction

Lower mordent and grace notes in harpsichord. Lots of ornaments throughout—common in the Baroque era.

4-3 suspension
RH of harpsichord, play-
er ‘realises’ the figured A to G#
bass, quite decorative Several chromatic notes in the ground bass (not diatonic) - tonality ambigu-
with lots of ornaments

Basso continuo— Harpsichord LH and bass viol in unison


harpsichord and
bass viol

Ground bass—3 bars long—quavers throughout, features an ascending sequential pattern V


A minor—generally minor key fits sombre nature of play and the text
Paired slurrings give a sense of flow to the music
A Section of Ternary Form (Da Capo Aria)

Mostly the music is syllabic—i.e. one note per syllable

Quite a lot of dotted rhythms in the harpsichord RH

Bass viol similar


to cello, 6 or 7
strings, more
wispy sound
I

Vocal range of a ninth from E to F, moderately large

Chords are diatonic and functional (as with most Baroque and Classical music)
Dissonance resolves on
Wondering an example of wordpainting- dotted rhythm and long melis-
pains—wordpainting
ma give a sense of movement to illustrate the word.

Leaps up minor
9th

Harpsichord imitates the melody (more like polyphony)

Dissonances (suspensions) on Trill in vocal melody—


eased, which resolve downwards— Baroque feature
wordpainting as pain is eased
Also a sequence

4-3 suspension 9-8 suspension 7-6 suspension

Spread chords (idiomatic writing)

Ground bass repeats 4 1/2 times in A minor— it is altered here V I

Modulated to E minor

Dominant minor

Wordpainting—free the dead major key

V I

Perfect cadence in G major


Very long melismas on ‘eternal’, which is an example of wordpainting, also a sequence

Part of the ground bass back in A minor V


Drop an example of wordpainting—quavers sepa-
rated by rests, descending shape. Each note is on
the offbeat and it’s repeated nine times.

Expect A minor cadence


because of C natural

V I
I
Perfect cadence into A major - Tierce de Picardie
Perfect cadence into C major
(Tonic major, surprise)
(Relative major)
Ascending major sixth leap Ground bass once fully in A minor

Spread chord in RH—idiomatic writing

V
A1—Ornamented version of the original melody

Vocal melody mostly moves by step, some larger leaps, e.g. Music, music perfect 5th

Return to the tonic key (A minor) - perfect cadence


I
V I Ground bass returns in tonic key in full
Perfect cadence into E major

Demisemiquavers—fastest note values


Upper mordent Grace notes

Appoggiatura
Spread chord in RH—
idiomatic writing

V I

Perfect cadence into A minor

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