Poetry and Music in Purcell's Earliest Ceremonial Odes

"Henry Purcell is known to have written twenty-four ceremonial odes for the royal families, St Cecilia's Day, and common people's ceremonial occasions. This paper analyses his earliest six odes to find how the poems written as odes were treated to make them part of proper musical works for stately occasions. It concludes that the main technique of expanding the original poems was repetition of words, phrases, or lines. However, such musical techniques as merisma, counter-point, and addition of ritornellos also helped to increase the grandeur of the works. The analysis shows the gradual development of Purcell's earliest odes, which finally reached the first ode for St Cecilia's Day, which looks simple but in reality is complex enough to be called a masterpiece.