What kinds of music did Henry Purcell compose for the English stage?

Because there was no public opera in London during his lifetime, most of Henry Purcell’s theatre music consisted of instrumental pieces and songs interpolated into spoken dramas. While his contributions were initially modest, he later became a prolific composer for the public stage.1

His work for the theatre generally fell into three categories:

• Incidental Music: Much of his output involved music written to accompany spoken plays, including songs and instrumental interludes.1
• Extended Musical Scenes: In some productions, Purcell had the opportunity to compose more substantial musical sequences, such as in Dioclesian (1690), King Arthur (1691), and The Fairy Queen (1692), which was an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.12
• Opera: His only true opera, Dido and Aeneas (1689), was written for a girls' school rather than a public theatre.13

In these works, Purcell demonstrated a gift for passionate expression and comedy, increasingly incorporating elements of the Italian style that demanded greater agility from his soloists.1