Henry Purcell歌劇Dido and Aeneas中的音樂風格研究

Abstract

During the 17th century, the Italian and French Opera flourished successfully throughout Europe. Although the English Musical Drama was also influenced by them, the spoken play with many songs, dances and stage machines was still the mainstream type of musical drama in England. Under the circumstances, there were few all-sung operas in the 17th century England. Dido and Aeneas, composed by Henry Purcell, was one of them and also the only all-sung opera among Purcell’s works. In Dido and Aeneas, Purcell combined the elements of English music with Italian and French ones. This work reflected exactly the trends of musical style in the late 17th century England.Therefore, this paper focuses on analyzing the musical style in Dido and Aeneas and comparing the characteristics of the English music with Italian and French one, to show how the music of Dido and Aeneas was influenced by other countries and retained its own English traits simultaneously.