Previously unknown Purcell documents discovered
A team of musicologists has discovered a previously unknown song by Purcell as well as the original manuscript of various piano compositions.
The song "As soon as day began to peep", in which a French fop makes fun of a girls' boarding school, was part of a play from 1691 entitled "Love for Money", written 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, the British Guardian quotes 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
