Henry Purcell – Dido and Aeneas (1689)

 

This piece can be found in Chapter 6 of the textbook, in the Early Baroque Music: Opera area. The piece features a female vocalist accompanied by basso continuo (Cello and Large Flute), and an orchestra. It is a very somber piece which features Dido, who has been deserted by her lover, Aeneas, singing farewell to all before dying of a broken heart. I blocked off about 50 minutes to listen to the track, over and over, while lying down in my bed,  and it was very a pretty interesting experience.

For the first 10 minutes, I mainly focused on the voice and how simple yet powerful the emotion was portrayed through it, but the more I listened to it, my mind drifted towards the other individual parts of the piece. One listen I would be listening to the soothing bassline from the continuo, and then in the next listen I would focus on the strings slowly getting softer and louder in the background. For the last little bit I just kept on drifting between the polyphonic and monophonic textures of the piece.

The more I listened to the piece, the more I noticed and was immersed into the individual sections that built the atmosphere, which gave me a more deeper appreciation of the complexities that lied underneath everything.