Previously unknown Purcell documents discovered
A team of musicologists has discovered a song by Henry Purcell and the original manuscript of various piano compositions in archives.
The song As soon as day began to peepin which a French fop makes fun of a girls' boarding school, was part of a play from 1691 entitled Love for Moneywritten by Thomas D'Urfey, a frequent collaborator of Purcell.
The piano manuscript has an elaborate binding of red leather with gold decorations, indicating that it once belonged to a wealthy owner. Around 1810 it was repurposed, with some of the blank staves being used as lines for the index of Thetford town council minutes.
Both discoveries provided important insights into the kind of music Purcell composed in the last five years of his short life, quotes the British Guardian the musicologist Stephen Rose.
Rose is leading a project entitled "Music, Heritage, Place: Unlocking the Musical Collections of England's County Record Offices", a collaboration between Royal Holloway University of London and Newcastle University to catalog music manuscripts in local archives.
Original article:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/oct/07/experts-find-music-english-composer-henry-purcell
