II. Outstanding architects of the 17th-18th centuries. Christopher Wren (1632-1723).

The most outstanding architect of Great Britain is definitely Christopher Wren. Many places of interest in London are connected with his name. It took Christopher Wren 35 years to build Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London. His ambition was to build a church that could rival Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. It stands on a hill and the gold ball and the cross at the top can be seen on a fine day from almost any spot of London. It is considered to be his masterpiece and one of London’s prime attractions. It is really worth admiring. Wren designed also many other city churched, but most of them were destroyed during WWII.

III. Music of Great Britain. Modern English Music.

Nowadays London well deserves its fame as one of the music capitals of the world . Much of English musical life is centred here. Many exciting musical events take place in London throughout the year including top international events. London alone has five symphony orchestras as well as being the home of the Royal Ballet, the Festival Ballet and the English National Opera.

In the 16^th-17^th centuries English musicians had a great reputation in Europe, both for talent and for their originality. Today there is a revival of interest in these neglected composers. William Bird was the most distinguished English composer of that time and his name is still widely known.

Henry Purcell (1659- 1695) was the finest and most original composer of his day. Though he was to live a very short life (he died in 1695) he was able to enjoy and make full use of the renewed flowering of music after the Restoration of the Monarchy. Purcell worked in Westminster for three different Kings over twenty-five years. Purcell devoted much of his talent to writing operas, or rather musical dramas, and incidental stage music; but he would also write chamber music and became involved with the growing London public concert scene. Indeed one of the most important musical developments in Restoration London was the gradual establishment of regular public concerts.

The writing of incidental theater music seems not to have been regarded by Purcell as embarrassing or beneath his dignity as Organist of Westminster Abbey. He was in the very midst of a tradition that not only permitted but actually encouraged well-known church musicians to provide lighter music for the theatre and opera, and this was an accepted practice in the great continental cities as well as in London. Most of Purcell's theatre music was written between 1690 and 1695 (the year of his death), and within that relatively brief period he supplied music for more than forty plays. Much of the instrumental music was published in 1697, when the composer's widow compiled A Collection of Ayres, Compos'd for the Theatre, and upon Other Occasions. This body of music, viewed as a whole, shows that Purcell gave to the theatre some of his happiest melodic inspirations, distributed among solemn overtures, cheerful or pathetic airs, and delightful dances of every imaginable kind.

There is hardly a department of music, as known in his day, to which Purcell did not contribute with true distinction.