Talk:Henry Purcell

Henry or not Henry?

While I am reasonably sure that the intended Purcell was indeed Henry and put a Wikipediainfo template to him, a closer look shows that there is not enough information to definitively state that. While Wikipedia redirects Purcell to Henry Purcell and he is also the only person found at the disambiguation page for Purcell, the list of people with this surname includes five more people who lived (at least in part) in the 17th century. They are Daniel Purcell, Edward Purcell (musician), Thomas Purcell of Loughmoe, Nicholas Purcell of Loughmoe and Toby Purcell. The last three are military types/Irish noblemen, so there seems little reason for Mary Shelley to even know about them. However, Daniel and Edward are musicians, just like Henry. Daniel is a younger brother or cousin of Henry, while Edward is his son. So, while it seems more plausible that Mary meant Henry, the context is, in my view, insufficient to rename the page to Henry Purcell. Amorkuz ☎ 18:40, June 5, 2016 (UTC)

Only Henry is a plausible candidate for the first 17th century musician you'd think of, though. I think the very slight conjecture is preferable to the very, very ugly dab term we'd have to use otherwise. After all, usually, when somebody mentions "Bach", we default to assuming they mean the Bachs, even though some of his relatives were fairly renowned composers in thier own right. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 17:19, 22 June 2021 (UTC)