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[1] This article explores the intersection of what I would consider the two most prominent recent methods of studying Purcell's creative process (Howard 2012, 66). The first method, which I term "paleographical," involves comparative study of variants within and between autograph and other sources. The second method, which is more strictly analytical, involves the examination of the music from the perspective of compositional strategies derived, for example, from contemporary contrapuntal practice. I bring together these two approaches in the context of a close reading of Purcell's second three-part fantazia for viols. Purcell's autograph scores of his fantazias in British Library, Add. MS 30930, have hitherto had little to offer those interested in the composer's creative processes from the paleographical perspective. Most of the works contain a small number of erasures and subsequent revisions, but the original readings are very often indecipherable and even in cases where both the old and new readings can be discerned, the changes tend to be small-scale: the kinds of minor corrections and revisions to detail that Purcell routinely introduced whenever he was engaged in copying out his music (Herissone 2013, 214-26; 2006, 581-86, 593-604). Such revisions presuppose an already existing score, with the result that they rarely seem to have any bearing on our ability to understand the earlier stages of Purcell's compositional involvement with the music; in order to investigate such matters, we must resort to analysis of the music, making use of relevant contemporary theoretical discussions where possible.[2] Nevertheless, it is possible that close analysis of Purcell's music might suggest fresh perspectives on the manuscript sources; furthermore, in attempting to understand how Purcell might have composed these exquisite fugal works, the manuscript alterations provide a useful testing-ground for hypotheses developed originally on analytical grounds. It is with this in mind that I focus in the present essay on the second of Purcell's three-part fantazias, which is among the most interesting of his works in the genre when viewed from either the paleographical or the analytical perspective. It may also be among very few such works by Purcell that were known to contemporary performers, since it is the only one for which manuscript parts survive--including, intriguingly, a duplicate (unfigured) bass, suggesting some sort of continuo accompaniment (Shay and Thompson 2000, 86, 106, 112).(1) In what follows, then, I propose an analysis of the fantazia that sets out to discover how Purcell was able to produce such a concentrated and sustained contrapuntal working, and how these compositional strategies have left their mark on the harmonic trajectory and expressive immediacy of the music.Measures 1-30.1: Imitative Materials[3] The first section of Purcell's fantazia is the most concentrated passage in the work, and is also the section to which I devote the most detailed analytical commentary. My overriding aim is to uncover the creative strategies Purcell employed in the creation of these thirty measures, and thereby to shed light on the workings of the music in imitative, harmonic, and expressive terms.[4] In the absence of sketches and drafts from the earliest stages of the compositional process, one of the principal sources of information about how composers like Purcell constructed imitative music is the advice of contemporary theorists and teachers. This kind of evidence is not without its problems: in an effort to tailor their advice to the amateur and/or inexperienced composer, and perhaps even to retain control of musical knowledge and techniques that had hitherto been available only to trained professionals, theorists omitted much information that must have been second nature to a fluent contrapuntist like Purcell, but that can seem remarkable to the modern listener and reader. This can be appreciated by attempting to apply some of the standard seventeenth-century advice to the recreation of the opening section of Purcell's Fantazia II. …

Compositional Strategies in Purcell’s Second Three-Part Fantazia