This pathbreaking study reveals Purcell's extensive use of symmetry and reversal in his much-loved trio sonatas, and shows how these hidden structural processes make his music multilayered and appealing.

The first major study to propose an analytical approach to Purcell's music beginning from contemporary compositional aims and techniques.

Using a mix of broad stylistic observation and detailed analysis, Adams distinguishes between late-seventeenth-century English style in general and Purcell's style in particular, and chronicles the changes in the composer's approach to the main genres in which he worked, especially the newly emerging ode and English opera. As a result, Adams reveals that although Purcell went through a marked stylistic development, encompassing an unusually wide range of surface changes, special elements of his style remained constant.