O Solitude Z.406

The original text of
O Solitude was by the French poet
Antoine de Saint-Amant. It was skillfully translated by the poet Katherine
Philips, who was particularly famous for her translation of Corneille’s Pompée into rhyming verse. It was the
first rhymed translation of a French tragedy and was produced in Dublin at the
Smock Alley Theatre, the first stage production ever of a play in English
written by a woman. She died of smallpox when only 32. Purcell’s setting is
based on twenty-eight repetitions of a ground bass. Over this hypnotic bass
Purcell illustrates the imaginative text with a ravishing melody, hiding the
regularity of the bass with overlapping vocal phrases and wonderful harmonic
variety.  There is much vivid word
painting – the phrase O Solitude recurs
throughout the song to a selection of
desolately falling intervals whereas today
as fresh and green optimistically rises through the scale.