Henry Purcell was an English composer and organist of the middle Baroque era. He was extremely prolific, having composed more than 100 songs, a tragic opera Dido and Aeneas, and wrote incidental music
Engraved portrait of Purcell by R. White after Closterman, from Orpheus Britannicus
Purcell's manuscript copy of When on my sick bed I languish (c. 1680)
Henry Purcell by John Closterman
"The Flowering of the English Baroque", bronze memorial sculpture by Glynn Williams in a small park on Victoria St, Westminster
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the
Henry Purcell
…1695) was an English composer and organist of the middle Baroque era. He was extremely prolific, having composed more than 100 songs, a tragic opera Dido and Aeneas, and wrote incidental music to a version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream called The Fairy Queen. Purcell's musical style was uniquely English…
Dido and Aeneas, from a Roman fresco, Pompeian Third Style (10 BC – 45 AD), Pompeii, Italy
The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, 1766