When I Am Laid in Earth (Dido's Lament) | Henry Purcell Opera Dido and Aeneas, Act III

Описание

#Dido'sLament, #HenryPurcell, #Nostalgic, #Opera, #Aria, #Melancholy, #Aeneid, #Virgil, #Music, #SadMusic

Born in 1659, Purcell was an English composer of the middle Baroque period, best remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, Dido and Aeneas; and his incidental music to a version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream called The Fairy Queen.

The most important English composer of his time, he composed music covering a wide field: the church, the stage, the court, and private entertainment. In all these branches of composition he showed an obvious admiration for the past combined with a willingness to learn from the
present, particularly from his contemporaries in Italy.

Purcell's opera alludes to the Aeneid, the Roman legend of the Trojan warrior Aeneas, travelling to Italy from the betrayed and fallen Troy in order to settle there and secure his son Ascanius's lineage. Their ship is blown off course from Sicily, and they land on the shore of North Africa, in Carthage, a town newly settled by refugees from Tyre.

Aeneas falls in love with their queen, Dido, but dutifully departs for Italy, thereby leaving her behind. Distraught at his betrayal, she orders a pyre to be built and set ablaze so that Aeneas will see from his ship that she has killed herself. She sings the lament before stabbing herself as Aeneas sails on.

Dido's Lament is one of the most melancholic compositions in the history of music.