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Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Stainer & Bell are pleased to announce that they are now the publishers to the Purcell Society and will be publishing all new volumes in the Purcell Society Edition and the NEW Purcell Society Edition Companion Series.
Purcell Society Edition
Volume 27
Henry PURCELL
Symphony Songs
Edited Bruce Wood
Ref: PE27
ISMN: 979-0-2202-2200-9
ISBN: 978-0-85249-900-9
Hardback
A collection of five cantatas and three vocal duets, plus In a deep vision’s intellectual scene ('The Complaint') for two sopranos, bass and continuo, these nine symphony songs are similar in style and structure to their sacred counterparts, the symphony anthems, and include works to texts by Charles Howe, Abraham Cowley and Anon.
This volume is published in hardback, catalogue ref. PE27 (£65.00) and is now available.
Purcell Society Edition Companion Series
Volume 1
Louis GRABU
Albion and Albanius. Opera
Edited Bryan White
Ref: PC1
ISMN: 979-0-2202-2212-2
ISBN: 978-0-85249-905-4
Hardback
This volume is published in hardback, catalogue ref. PC1 (£80.00) and is now available.
Stainer & Bell are pleased to announce the launch of an important scholarly edition that will make a significant new contribution to the study of music and theatre in Restoration England.
As part of the internationally regarded Purcell Society Edition, the Purcell Society Companion Series presents in modern critical texts – and in many cases for the first time – a varied repertoire of hitherto largely inaccessible work by the composer’s contemporaries, which will both illuminate his own achievement and further our understanding of this flourishing yet complex period of theatrical activity as a whole.
For despatch early in 2008, the first volume of the series, Louis Grabu’s Albion and Albanius, edited by Bryan White, is among the first operas in English, written to a libretto by John Dryden, and produced at the Dorset Garden Theatre, London, on 3 June 1685. Composed by the erstwhile Master of the King’s Musick to Charles II, the score is of particular interest as representing the French style of Lully, unusual in English music at the time, and is in striking contrast to the score for Dryden’s sequel to the work, King Arthur, with music by Purcell.
Also for publication in 2008, John Blow’s pastoral opera Venus and Adonis, the second volume of the Companion Series, presents another key work from the decade of the 1680s, which was an important focus of transition between the pre-Restoration masque and the genres of opera and semi-opera. Long recognised as influential far beyond its modest scope, this delightful work is newly edited by the distinguished 17th-century scholar Bruce Wood, with the original and the revised version of the work printed in parallel text on facing pages – the first time an opera has ever been presented in this way. Full performing material for the opera, including single-version scores, will also be made available.
The third volume in the Companion Series, Giovanni Battista Draghi’s From harmony (A Song for St Cecilia's Day, 1687 – the original setting of Dryden’s celebrated poem), edited by Bryan White, is in preparation.
