Purcell - Music for a While

• Music for a While is written in the mid-Baroque period
• Music for a While is an example of incidental music which is written in a part of a play called Oedipus
• The tonality of Music for a While is mostly in A minor.

  But it also modulates to E minor, G major and C major
• Tierce de Picardie in Music for a While (which suggests a major key)
• There is some tonal ambiguity in Music for a While due to the chromatic notes in the ground bass
• The melody in Music for a While is mostly diatonic
• The melody in Music for a While is mostly conjunct and syllabic
• There are many ascending and descending sequences in Music for a While
• Word painting (drop part) is used a lot in Music for a While
• Music for a While uses ornamentation:

  • appoggiaturas
  • trills
  • mordents
• The metre in Music for a While is in 4/4
• Music for a While uses an adagio (slow) tempo
• The ground bass in Music for a While plays continuous quavers
• There are plenty of dotted notes in Music for a While
• There is some syncopation in Music for a While
• Music for a While has functional and diatonic harmonies
• Music for a while uses root position and first inversion chords
• Music for a While also have suspensions during cadences sometimes, there are lots of perfect cadences
• Music for a While also uses false relation (a type of dissonance)
• The texture in Music for a While is melody dominated homophony.

  • the accompaniment is the ground bass in the left hand of the harpsichord and the bass viol
  • the right hand of the harpsichord help realises the melody
• Music for a While sonority

  • vocals
  • harpsichord
  • bass viol
• Music for a While uses ternary from (ABA)

  • returning back to A which is more decorated by the singer is called da capo aria
• In Music for a While, the ground bass:

  • is three bars long
  • continuous quavers
  • it is an ostinato
  • ascends A, B, C, D, E then back to A