The drums roll, hollow and ominously persistent. Then come the trumpets, in a minor key, sepulchral, eerie, penetrating. ‘Just imagine,’ interrupts Donald Macleod, ‘the sense of shock mingled with a kind of disbelieving horror of those who performed that music in November 1695.’ Macleod was introducing his Composer of the Week, which as part of Radio 3’s Baroque Spring has been Purcell.
It was a startling way to begin. Purcell was only 36 when he died, very suddenly, the cause unknown and variously suggested as TB, flu, or food poisoning — perhaps after eating some tainted chocolate. He had composed the music that was played at his funeral only eight months earlier, for the funeral of Queen Mary, which took place in the same venue, Westminster Abbey. The bathetic splendour of these ‘Funeral Sentences’ still commands our attention.
To have five distinct hours dedicated to solid Purcell, as the epitome of English Baroque, is a treat only Radio 3 can offer. It’s taken years to perfect that fusion of conversation and music, creating programmes that get us thinking about the music, where the sound comes from, how it was written, when it was written, what was going on at the time. It’s like attending a mini-masterclass, but listening at home, as we chop the vegetables, our ears attuned, our minds taken elsewhere, and into Westminster Abbey as Purcell’s cortège was solemnly carried through the nave.
By beginning with the end of his life, Macleod gave us a blast of pure Purcell, the full sensurround experience, before exploring in the rest of the week the key elements that make up his fabulous musical accomplishment — from that solemn, deeply moving religious music to the bawdiest of Restoration songs.
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