Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695) - Music for a While - Philippe Jaroussky, countertenor.

Here we have French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and European early music group L'arpeggiata in an arrangement by theorbist Christina Pluhar of Purcell's sensationally beautiful "Music for a While".

I have always felt that the jazz and Baroque idioms work well together, especially with the fertile harmonic opportunities offered by a ground bass, as here. Jacques Loussier, for example, fused Bach with jazz brilliantly, in a way which broadened Bach's audience considerably.

The Music and Composer

Henry Purcell 1659 – 1695 was an English composer. Although he incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements, Purcell's was a uniquely English form of Baroque music. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest English composers; no later native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century.

Purcell's Music for a While (Z.583/2) from "Oedipus" (Incidental Music), was composed in 1692.
Text by John Dryden & Nathaniel Lee
Arr. Christina Pluhar

Performers

Philippe Jaroussky, Gianluigi Trovesi,
David Mayoral, Sergey Saprichev, Francesco Turrisi,
Boris Schmidt

Text

Music for a while
shall all your cares beguile.
Wond'ring how your pains were eased
and disdaining to be pleased
till Alecto free the dead
from their eternal bands,
till the snakes drop from her head,
and the whip from out her hands.

Images (not mine)

Henry Purcell; Ornette Coleman; Philippe Jaroussky; Chet Baker; Nina Simone; Alexander Bone; Sonny Rollins; Philippe Jaroussky

From "Music for a While - Improvisations on Purcell"
(Erato/Warner Classics)