Purcell’s Stage Singers

Abstract Jeremiah Clarke’s ode Come, Come Alongfor a Dance and a Song was composed ‘upon ye Death of ye Famous Mr. Henry Purcell, and perform’d upon ye Stage in Druery lane play house’. This scene of shepherds rejoicing in a holiday and then mourning the death of the ‘Glory of ye Arcadian Groves’ was surely the most moving of the tributes to Purcell, sung and acted by the four principal singers for whom he had written in his final year. The oldest of these singers, John Freeman, was 29; both the boy Jemmy Bowen and the girl Letitia Cross were under 15, and the bass, Richard Leveridge, was 24 or 25. We would be unlikely, nowadays, to hear a tribute to a major composer put on in a leading London theatre with performers so youthful, and this perhaps startles us into thinking about the differences between performers and performing conditions in Purcell’s day and the manner in which we perform him now. Looking at the ages, backgrounds, and personalities of the singers for whom he wrote should be illuminating.