"Did you know that Purcell was rumoured to have died of chocolate poisoning?"
Henry Purcell, one of England’s greatest composers, died at the young age of 36 in 1695. The tantalising rumour was that he met his death by chocolate poisoning. In late 17th-century London, chocolate was a newly discovered luxury drink from the tropics of the New World. The original spicy, bitter-sweet drink was a fermented mixture of ground cocoa beans, maize and chili peppers. Chocolate reached English shores from Europe in a sweetened form in the 1650s. It was an expensive import, initially consumed by the upper classes, and held in particularly high favour at the court of King Charles II. It eventually became more freely available, with the first “Chocolate House” opening in London in 1657, and soon followed by many more. Like the fashionable coffee houses, they served as meeting places where people could conduct business and socialise over the new exotic beverage. Did Purcell take a lethal overdose of potent cocoa, was he murdered for belonging to a secret society, or did he die of pneumonia after his wife locked him out of their London house in the rain after another late night out with his friends?
Don’t miss the chance to hear Purcell's Suite from The Fairy Queen in the CCOHK's upcoming Queen of the Baroque concert!
