Come Ye Sons of Art, Z.323, also known as Ode for Queen
Mary's birthday, is a musical ode written by Henry
Purcell in 1694 in honor of the birthday of Queen Mary
II of England. The text is often attributed to Nahum
Tate.
Purcell begins the ode with a symphony or overture
consisting of three movements: a largo followed by a
fugal canzona and an adagio. Purcell later rewrote the
opening symphony and incorporated into his opera The
Indian Queen. The opening chorus is on the words "Come,
Ye...(+)
Come Ye Sons of Art, Z.323, also known as Ode for Queen
Mary's birthday, is a musical ode written by Henry
Purcell in 1694 in honor of the birthday of Queen Mary
II of England. The text is often attributed to Nahum
Tate.
Purcell begins the ode with a symphony or overture
consisting of three movements: a largo followed by a
fugal canzona and an adagio. Purcell later rewrote the
opening symphony and incorporated into his opera The
Indian Queen. The opening chorus is on the words "Come,
Ye sons of Art," and serves as the introduction to the
text. For the countertenor duet Sound the Trumpet,
instead of using actual trumpets, Purcell choose to
incorporate a two-bar modulating ground bass as the
singers imitate the sound of trumpets. The day that
such a blessing gave is intended to be a prayer for the
day be of jubilation. This joy is displayed in the rest
of the composition.
"The earliest surviving complete source is a manuscript
score signed by one ‘Rob[er]t Pindar’, and dated
1765—some seventy years after Purcell’s death."[4]
A new performance edition was published by Stainer &
Bell in 2010, edited by Rebecca Herissone. Comparisons
of existing manuscript or autograph scores led to the
removal of eighteenth-century "enhancement". Dr.
Herissone states that Purcell did not incorporate music
from The Indian Queen into Come Ye Sons of Art, but
that the editor (Robert Pinder) of the only surviving
published edition of the work made drastic changes,
including incorporating music from several of Purcell's
previous theater works. This new edition is based on a
comparison of Come Ye Sons of Art with manuscripts of
other Odes written by Purcell showing exactly the same
instrumental and editorial changes made by Pindar.
Herissone also points out that the "opening solo quite
clearly begins ‘Come, ye sons of arts’, in the
plural, not ‘Come, ye sons of art’ as in Pindar’s
score, so the decision has been taken in the edition to
follow the text as given in Purcell’s autograph." It
appears the original title was 'Come, ye sons of arts.'
The full article, along with a complete list of changes
made by Pindar, is available in the 2010 publication by
Stainer & Bell.
As the favorite composer of King William III of
England, Purcell was given the task of composing odes
for the birthday of Queen Mary. Come, Ye Sons of Art,
written for performance in April 1694, was the sixth
and final ode: Queen Mary died at the end of that
year.
Although originally written for Voices (2) and
Orchestra, I Arranged this piece for Trumpets (2) and
Piano.
PARTITION