Henry Purcell
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40 free Henry Purcell trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Henry Purcell died in his mid-thirties, yet he is still counted among the greatest composers England has produced. He wrote for kings and queens, for the London stage and for the church, and his tunes keep turning up centuries later in places he could never have imagined. This quiz gathers the fun facts people look for about Purcell: the strange stories told about his death, the opera that every music student meets, the royal occasions he wrote for, and the film directors, rock guitarists and pop acts that have borrowed from him. It suits music students, choir singers, teachers planning a lesson and anyone curious about English music history. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few stories worth retelling.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Stanley Kubrick film uses an electronic version of a Henry Purcell funeral march as its title music?
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange opens with Purcell's 1695 march reworked on synthesizer by Wendy Carlos, who had made her name with Switched-On Bach.
Q 02Which English rock band's guitarist has named Henry Purcell's harmonies as an influence on its songs?
The Who
The Who guitarist Pete Townshend learned Purcell's suspended chords from the band's producer Kit Lambert. The influence is heard in the opening of Pinball Wizard and in I Can See for Miles.
Q 03Which English composer based The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra on a tune by Henry Purcell?
Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten took the Rondeau from Purcell's music for the play Abdelazer. He wrote the piece for a 1946 educational film that showed off each section of the orchestra in turn.
Q 04According to one story, Henry Purcell caught a fatal chill after being locked out of his home by whom?
His wife
His wife Frances is said to have bolted the door when he came home late from the theatre. Another theory is that tuberculosis killed him, at just 35 or 36.
Q 05A crater near the north pole of which world is named after the English composer Henry Purcell?
Mercury
Mercury has craters named after famous writers, artists and composers. The name Purcell was adopted there in 1979.
Q 06Henry Purcell's The Fairy-Queen is a lavish musical adaptation of which Shakespeare comedy?
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream supplied the spoken play, yet Purcell set none of Shakespeare's words to music. His songs and dances sit in separate masques instead.
Q 07Massed Guards bands play a version of Dido's Lament by Henry Purcell each year at which British ceremony?
Remembrance Sunday
Remembrance Sunday brings the lament to the Cenotaph in Whitehall every November. The aria is sung by a queen who is about to die, and asks to be remembered.
Q 08Which popular wedding processional was wrongly credited to Henry Purcell for many years?
Trumpet Voluntary
Trumpet Voluntary is really Clarke's Prince of Denmark's March, written around 1700. An organ arrangement published in the 1870s put the more famous name on it.
Q 09Lillibullero, a march tune attributed to Henry Purcell, became the signature tune of which radio broadcaster?
BBC World Service
BBC World Service engineers chose the tune because it cut through shortwave interference. They did not know it began as a political street song of the 1680s.
Q 10In Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, Dido is the queen of which ancient North African city?
Carthage
Carthage is where the Trojan hero Aeneas stops on his voyage to Italy. He abandons Dido to sail on, and the opera ends with her death.
Q 11Henry Purcell was organist of which London church, where he is now buried beside the organ?
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey made Purcell its organist when he was about twenty. When he died, its officials voted unanimously to bury him there with no expense spared.
Q 12The story of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas comes from an epic poem by which Roman author?
Virgil
Virgil tells the tale in Book IV of the Aeneid, his epic about a Trojan warrior who leaves fallen Troy to found a new home in Italy.
Q 13Henry Purcell, who died in 1695, belongs to which era of Western classical music?
Baroque
Baroque is the label for the era that runs from Monteverdi to Bach. Johann Sebastian Bach was only ten years old when Purcell died.
Q 21Which teacher of Henry Purcell made way for his pupil as an organist in 1679, then returned to the post in 1695?
John Blow
John Blow outlived his pupil by thirteen years and wrote an ode on his death. His court masque Venus and Adonis was a model for Purcell's own opera.
Q 22Henry Purcell built Dido's Lament over which musical device, heard eleven times in the aria?
Ground bass
Ground bass means a short bass line repeated while the music above it changes. In the lament it sinks step by step through a chromatic fourth.
Q 23Which Henry Purcell stage work did he leave unfinished, with its final masque supplied by the composer Daniel Purcell?
The Indian Queen
Q 14Which poet wrote the words for Henry Purcell's King Arthur and, later, an ode mourning the composer's death?
John Dryden
John Dryden probably drafted the text in 1684 for King Charles II, then set it aside. He reworked it seven years later to suit Purcell's music.
Q 15Which poet, known for giving King Lear a happy ending, wrote the libretto for Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas?
Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate became Poet Laureate in 1692. He also wrote the words of the Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.
Q 16The first known performance of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas took place at what kind of venue in Chelsea?
A girls' school
A girls' school run by the dancing master Josias Priest had staged the opera by the end of 1689. It never reached the public stage in Purcell's lifetime.
Q 17What name is given to Henry Purcell stage works such as King Arthur, in which the leads speak and others sing?
Semi-opera
Semi-opera mixed a spoken play with masques of song, dance and stage machinery. Only supernatural, pastoral or drunken characters were normally given music.
Q 18Henry Purcell wrote several odes to honour which saint, whose feast day falls on 22 November?
Cecilia
Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music, and London's musicians marked her day each year from 1683. Purcell died on 21 November 1695, the eve of her feast.
Q 19Henry Purcell's music runs through which Best Picture winner starring Dustin Hoffman?
Kramer vs. Kramer
Kramer vs. Kramer pairs Purcell with a Vivaldi mandolin concerto. The 1979 divorce drama won five Academy Awards.
Q 20Henry Purcell's King Arthur shows the king at war with which people, rather than the legends of Camelot?
The Saxons
The Saxons are led by King Oswald of Kent, who has abducted Arthur's fiancée, the blind Cornish princess Emmeline.
The Indian Queen of the title is Zempoalla, queen of the Aztecs. Purcell set only the prologue and two acts before he died, and Daniel is usually described as his brother.
Q 24A song from Henry Purcell's King Arthur inspired the hymn Love Divine, All Loves Excelling by which writer?
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley modelled his first verse on Fairest Isle, a song given to the goddess Venus. His brother John later published the hymn with Purcell's tune.
Q 25Which Wes Anderson film keeps returning to an orchestral version of a rondeau by Henry Purcell?
Moonrise Kingdom
Moonrise Kingdom uses the theme as a recurring motif, in the arrangement from The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.
Q 26A dance called A Postcard to Henry Purcell features in the score of which Keira Knightley period drama?
Pride & Prejudice
Pride & Prejudice has the piece as dance music at the Netherfield ball. Composer Dario Marianelli based it on a theme Purcell wrote for the play Abdelazer.
Q 27Which conductor, famous for Disney's Fantasia, arranged Dido's Lament by Henry Purcell for symphony orchestra?
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski was known for his orchestral transcriptions of Bach. In Fantasia he shakes hands on screen with Mickey Mouse.
Q 28The Purcell Room, a small concert hall named after Henry Purcell, belongs to which London arts complex?
Southbank Centre
Southbank Centre has three concert venues, and the Purcell Room is the smallest. It was built together with the Queen Elizabeth Hall in a Brutalist style.
Q 29Henry Purcell's Te Deum was sung every year at St Paul's until settings by which German-born composer took over?
Handel
Handel modelled his Utrecht Te Deum on Purcell's setting, and for decades the two works alternated at the cathedral.
Q 30The song collection published after Henry Purcell's death named him the British version of which mythical musician?
Orpheus
Orpheus Britannicus gathered Purcell's songs in two volumes. Its preface praised his gift for setting English words to music.