Purcell, although mainly celebrated by generations of scholars and music lovers as a composer of vocal music, was arguably also the most prolific and original English composer of instrumental music in the first decades after the Restoration. His works are cast in a variety of media. They are written for a wide array of instruments—from the traditional chest of viols to instruments that, in the early 1690s, were the latest additions to the theatre orchestra (such as the kettledrums and the trumpet). The works explore different scorings ranging from intimate da camera to flamboyant orchestral music written for the most ambitious stage spectacles of his age. The genres Purcell used range from the most archaic to the most à la mode, flirting at once with the court's Francophile taste and with the burgeoning amateur market's passion for all things Italian. Evidently, his earlier years were dominated by the study of music written by his own countrymen. Purcell's admiration for the venerable tradition of English contrapuntists, both of sacred polyphony and of domestic consort music, is apparent in many works of his first creative decade (ca. 1675–85), and the vestiges of that influence remained throughout the following decade, offering a unique lens through which to observe the French and Italian stylistic dichotomy.

Purcell's reverence for tradition and the legacy of earlier masters (English and foreign) is reflected in many of his early works. Yet, at the same time, he showed openness toward recent advances in business practices, and was attentive to social, political, and economic changes. Although his works for court and chapel were not intended for wide circulation, many of his works for domestic music-making and the stage not only exploited the flourishing business of music printing, but also helped to establish the status of music printing as an artistic platform of prime importance. After numerous small-scale contributions to collections, his pioneering and independent use of the press started with the twelve Sonnata's of III Parts (1683), the first-ever set of trio sonatas to be printed in England.