Henry Purcell When I Am Laid In Earth Interpretation

Henry Purcell attached significance to major and minor keys to show the listener the intense emotion behind the song. He made sure that by changing the keys the audience would hear the transition in sounds that told his story. Purcell’s changing of keys described fear, sadness, happiness and falling in love which captured the audience’s mind. Henry Purcell way of handling the keys was very clever, for the reason that he was able to draw the mind of his audience. Personally, I feel it made sense in the way he arranged the keys and effective because it sounded simple and easy to follow. The two most famous arias from “Dido and Aeneas” that use ground bass technique is “Ah Belinda” and “When I am laid in earth’ (Dido’s lament)”. “The technique …show more content…
She sings the aria with so much passion to make her audience feel as though they were in the midst of the story. The Baroque period instruments played a significant role in blending in with her voice to make it even more dramatic and to show the transitions on emotions throughout. The Jessye Norman version of the aria was very dramatic and touching. Her voice strongly carried out the story and the transitions were also clear. The audience was drawn by the passion of her voice. Jessye Norman’s voice was almost “goose bump like”. The instruments made her performance spectacular for the reason that they were in tune with her voice and every instrument playing conveyed the story, which was incredible to watch and listen. Alison Moyet version to “Dido’s lament” was different from the other two I listened to. She has a great voice and it’s clear and when listened to carefully, one can make out the words of the song when she sings. It had a very solemn sound, but the modern interpretation of the piece did not really bring out the intensity and the strong emotion of the song. Even though, it sounded sorrowful the mood of the piece did not compare to the traditional