An extraordinary acknowledgement of the esteem with which the composer was regarded in his lifetime, the three surviving odes on the death of Henry Purcell are also in themselves among the finest works by his English contemporaries.

John Blow’s extended elegy ‘Mark how the lark and linnet sing’, which sets a poem by Dryden, modestly scored for two voices, two recorders and continuo, is a masterpiece displaying both the contrapuntal skill which Blow had taught Purcell and the florid declamato...