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Purcell's Funeral Music Analysis

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The funeral music for Queen Mary

The March is one of Purcell's three chosen pieces for Queen Mary's funeral, and was based on previous scores written before the death

The march, in C minor, was written for a quartet of flatt trumpets, which could play notes outside of the harmonic series and thus in a minor key. The piece homophonic - this is where music is characterised by the movement of accompanying parts in the same rhythm as the melody.

In the first line we see Tier de Picardie, were chords are in a minor key, but change to a major key at the end of a phrase. For example in the first bar; root chords go from C Major to F Minor.

Throughout the piece Purcell uses antecedent, a question phrase normally ending on a dominant chord. This
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