Purcell

 Today is the birthday of Henry Purcell – born 1659, and dead a scant 36 years later. It ought to be a national holiday, but that sort of thing doesn't happen in England, where even Shakespeare's (supposed) birthday (and death day) is not a national holiday, despite being also St George's Day. I came late to Purcell, having spent most of my musically formative years in thrall to German Romanticism and the Big Symphony, but when I finally started listening to his music, beyond the few 'greatest hits' I already knew, I realised that here was a truly great composer – indeed our last great composer before Elgar, Vaughan Williams and co. revived English music at the turn of the 20th century. And to think, if England had persisted in its republican experiment, we would never have had the musical glories of Purcell...
    Birthdays loomed large in Purcell's musical output: his first known composition is an ode written for the King (Charles II)'s birthday in 1670, when young Henry was not yet 11. Much later in his career, the birthday odes he wrote for Queen Mary are among his most beautiful works. Here is one of the brightest and best...