What type of music did Henry Purcell write for The Fairy Queen?

For The Fairy Queen (1692), an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry Purcell composed incidental music consisting of songs and instrumental pieces.12

Because there was no public opera in London during his lifetime, Purcell’s stage works often featured music interpolated into spoken drama. In The Fairy Queen, all the texts set to music are interpolations rather than part of the original play's dialogue. Through these works, Purcell demonstrated a lively sense of comedy and a gift for passionate musical expression, increasingly incorporating elements of the Italian style that demanded significant agility from his soloists.1