Dido's Lament
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Dido's Lament is a popular name for a famous aria, "When I am laid in earth" from the opera Dido and Æneas by Henry Purcell, with the libretto by Nahum Tate.
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Fame
Dido's Lament is included in many classical music textbooks for its exemplary use of ground bass. The conductor Leopold Stokowski has written a transcription of the piece for symphony orchestra.
Analysis
The opening recitative secco, Thy hand, Belinda is accompanied by continuo only. Word painting is applied on the text darkness and death which is presented with chromaticism, symbolic of death.
Dido's Lament opens with a descending chromatic line, the ground bass which is repeated eleven times throughout the aria. The meter is 3/2 in the key of G minor. Henry Purcell has applied word painting on the words laid which is also given a descending chromatic line portraying death and agony, and Remember me which is presented in a syllabic text setting and repeated with its last presentation leaping in register with a sudden crescendo displaying her desperate cry with urgency as she prepares for her fate: death.
Text
Recitative
- Thy hand, Belinda, darkness shades me,
- On thy bosom let me rest,
- More I would, but Death invades me;
- Death is now a welcome guest.
Aria
- When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create
- No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;
- Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
- Remember me, but ah! forget my fate,
