This is a brief bio of English composer Henry Purcell used as a basis for Michael Guy's fictionalized main character in his novel: The Last Renaissance Man

The Last Renaissance Man

Henry Purcell: England's greatest Baroque period composer, especially for songs, both secular and sacred, and the most instrumental composer in establishing the English form of semi-opera that lead to the first true English opera, his "Dido & Aneneas" still performed today. Born in 1659 near London, he spent his entire life in that city. He was schooled as a choirister by his musical father who brought him up in the Royal Chapel choir and after tutoring the young Purcell himself was able to turn him over to the by then famous composer and organist at Westminster, John Blow. This was the perfect environment and foundation for a budding composer especially in the predominant choral and vocal music of the time. Purcell was well on his way and by 1683, the time he asssumed his first formal music position in the Royal House, he had already taken over organ duties from Blow and was personal keyboardist and composer to King Charles, now restored. He then went on to be the Restoration's definitive composer serving under William and Mary, and his association with Queen Mary from Her Majesty's coronation in 1689 to the Her death in late fall of 1694 by small pox lead to repeated commissions for his finest music. After his seminal debut of his late childhood opera, "Dido & Aneneas" (originally written around 1683), at the Young Girl's School in Chelsea in 1689, he went on to wirte many anthems, semi-operas and his best music for Queen Mary in the "Welcome Songs", and Birthday Odes he wrote for her April 30 birthday each year and for their returning visits from the Scotland each summer's end. His wife, Francis, who he met at the Young Girl's school or before, was a singer and schooled in music although not a professional. They had three children, two girls and a boy, and his brother Daniel Purcell was a composer in his own right; after Henry's premature death in 1695 at only 35 years old, Daniel was capable of finishing some of his semi-operas (notably The Indian Queen) and publishing post-mortem works of his more famous brother, Henry. It seems Henry Purcell may acutally have died of pnemonia in an incident similar to the one imagined in Chapter One of Michael Guy's ficiton novel: The Last Renaissance Man. Purcell was very much the composer about town in London of ca. 1695, and even had investment in a local pub where he met with his agent, one Thomas Betterton (a coal merchant) to plan business and concert ventures. He was quite harried what with continuing his Royal Chapel duties, while engaging a theater career in semi-opera, all the while, attempting to raise a family on additional cash needed by whatever commissions he could come by. He was known to be at his pub late, working, but perhaps doing a fair amount of drinking with his "buddies". There is evidence he was locked out of his house late one damp night by his wife (intentional or not we'll never know) and perhaps his wife, Francis lived a full 12 years after her famous husband to regret her error in judgement.



In THE LAST RENAISSANCE MAN, a fantasy novel based on Purcell's last year of life, he of course doesn't die at home in London. Though pure fiction based on some true events of the real composer,author Michael Guy takes Henry Purcell on an imaginative, musical and nautical adventure to fill the last year of his live from April 1695 to November 21, 1695, the date he actually died in London. After his beloved Queen Mary died, he wrote and performed Her funeral music on March 5, 1695, little is known of how Purcell spent his last months, to die almost a year to the day of his beloved Patroness Queen. He certainly did not go to the Caribbean, but the novel takes us into his thoughts and emotions on human mortality. All in a context of his musical and composing world, that seems believeable, given that the author bases his fiction on the real music and mind of composer Henry Purcell.