Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary

Mary in 1685

Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Z. 860 is a march, canzona. They were written by Henry Purcell, together with a setting of Thou Knowest Lord, for the funeral of Queen Mary II of England in 1695. Purcell's setting of Thou knowest Lord was performed at his own funeral in November of the same year.[1]

Background

Queen Mary II died in December 1694, but her funeral was not until March 1695. Purcell composed a setting of the sixth of the seven sentences of the Anglican Burial Service (Thou Knowest Lord, Z. 58C) for the occasion, together with the March and Canzona (Z. 780)[2] It is believed these were performed with settings of the other six sentences by the Elizabethan composer Thomas Morley[3] Purcell had much earlier composed settings of three of the Burial Service sentences, including two different ones of Thou Knowest Lord.[4] The earlier settings are contained in autograph score, but there is no autograph of the 1695 music[5] Later in 1695 Purcell reused the March and Canzona as part of incidental music for Thomas Shadwell's play The Libertine[6]

Text and instrumentation

Autograph manuscript of the second Funeral Sentence, British Library

The work is scored for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, four trumpets, and basso continuo. The text of Thou Knowest Lord is from the Book of Common Prayer (1662):


6. Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;
shut not thy merciful ears unto our pray'rs;
but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty.

O holy and most merciful Saviour,
thou most worthy Judge eternal,
suffer us not, at our last hour,
for any pains of death, to fall from thee. Amen.

Music

The march, in C minor, was written for a quartet of flatt trumpets, which could play notes outside of the harmonic series and thus in a minor key. Following the march is the canzona, also in C minor. Thou Knowest Lord is in E flat major and is a stirring hymn-like setting with all the voice parts moving in the same rhythm.

Earlier funeral music by Henry Purcell not written for Queen Mary's funeral

Purcell's earlier setting of the fourth sentence of the Burial Service, Man that is born of a woman, introduces a melancholy theme. Purcell brings tension to the phrase with hath but a short time to live, and the melody rises and falls with the words he cometh up and is cut down like a flower. With In the midst of life we are in death, an earlier setting of the fifth sentence, Purcell begins with a soprano part that is passed on to the choir. The music portrays with chromaticism an air of anguish. There are two earlier versions of Thou Knowest Lord.[7]

Use in film

An electronic version by Wendy Carlos of the Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary was used by Stanley Kubrick for the main theme of his film A Clockwork Orange. Another version is heard in Chris Marker's Le souvenir d'un avenir (Remembrance of things to come).

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Queen Mary's Funeral Music", The Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford University Press (ISBN 0-19-861459-4).
  2. ↑ Bruce Wood: "The First Performance of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary" in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, edited by Michael Burden, pages 61–81 (Oxford University Press, 1996)
  3. ↑ Bruce Wood: "The First Performance of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary" in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, edited by Michael Burden, pages 61–81 (Oxford University Press, 1996).
  4. ↑ Bruce Wood: "The First Performance of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary" in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, edited by Michael Burden, pages 61–81 (Oxford University Press, 1996)
  5. ↑ Bruce Wood: "The First Performance of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary" in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, edited by Michael Burden, pages 61–81 (Oxford University Press, 1996).
  6. ↑ Ian Spink, Purcell's Music for 'the Libertine', Music & Letters, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Nov., 2000), 520-531.
  7. ↑ Bruce Wood: "The First Performance of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary" in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell, edited by Michael Burden, pages 61–81 (Oxford University Press, 1996)

External links

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