Books by Michael Burden

Regina Mingotti was the first female impresario to run London's opera house. Michael Burden offers the first considered survey of Mingotti's London years, including material on Mingotti's publication activities, and the identification of the characters in the key satirical print 'The Idol'.

Henry Purcell has long been acknowledged as one of England's greatest composers. This book describes his position in British musical history, music in London during his lifetime, his Italian connections and his contemporaries. It includes a bibliography that details research undertaken on various aspects of Purcell's life and career.

"Dido and Aeneas" has been one of the most compelling of the great classical myths. The material the story offers has led artists and authors throughout the centuries to appropriate - and misappropriate - the story for artistic and political ends. This book examines the myth itself and the way in which it has been re-interpreted by later authors.

Purcell was the greatest ornament of English music in the seventeenth century, and has been a source of inspiration for British composers ever since. This book offers a portrait of the composer both in his time and since, using diaries, letters and official and published writings from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.