Two significant discoveries of music by Henry Purcell, the leading English composer of the 17th century, have been unearthed in local authority archives in Worcestershire and Norfolk. The finds include the printed score of a previously unknown song and the original manuscript for various keyboard compositions, partly in Purcell's own hand – the first such autograph found in over 30 years.
The printed song, 'As soon as day began to peep', was written for a character in the 1691 play Love for Money by Thomas D'Urfey, a frequent collaborator of Purcell. Stephen Rose, professor of music at Royal Holloway, University of London, described how the song comically portrays a French fop comparing himself to a cat howling at his beloved's door. The play was booed by London audiences for its satirical attack on a Chelsea girls' boarding school, where Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas had been performed.
The keyboard manuscript, bound in red leather with gold decoration, contains nine pieces by Purcell and John Blow in versions different from those previously known. Three pieces by Purcell are in his own hand, including early versions of his G minor suite, offering insights into his harpsichord playing. The manuscript had been repurposed around 1810 for indexing Thetford town council records.
Alan Howard, chair of the Purcell Society, called the song discovery 'highly significant' and 'almost unheard of', as no prior record of the piece existed. The song has been reconstructed and can now be performed. The Norfolk manuscript will feature on BBC Radio 3's The Song Detectorists on 24 October. Both archives are making digitised versions available, with further details to be published in a scholarly article.
