As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate disclosure.
Historical person
1659–1695
Henry Purcell was a composer, organist and singer associated with Westminster Abbey, the Chapel Royal and the London theatre. He combined English musical traditions with French and Italian influences in sacred music, court pieces, songs and stage works.
His output includes Dido and Aeneas , music for King Arthur and The Fairy-Queen , anthems, funeral music and many songs. Purcell’s career places him at the centre of Restoration cultural life under Charles II, James II and William and Mary.
In Geoffrey Trease’s Trumpets in the West, Henry Purcell’s musical world provides a cultural counterpoint to rebellion, repression and the political arguments that preceded the Glorious Revolution. The final English Commonwealth novel brings the sequence to the later Stuart succession crisis. Court music, popular enthusiasm and military defeat place artistic ambition beside the dangerous demands of allegiance.
Series
The English Commonwealth Sequence follows connected lives across the upheavals that began with civil war and continued through the Restoration and the succession crisis of 1685. Silver Guard opens amid the First English Civil War, Grey Adventurer follows the consequences of the Stuart return in London and colonial…
All books in this series
