LOVE-CANZONETTES for Chorus a Cappella A Cappella - Audio

SKU: A0.1682146

These 10 crowd-pleasing chansons, total duration about 24 minutes, found a welcome home in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1991 with this stirring rendition of St. Clair's popular "Love-Canzonettes", delightful and ribald poems by 17th century poet John Dryden, as performed brilliantly by the Boston Cecilia singers under Donald Teeters. The text of no. 1, "The Lady's Song", is given below.

LOVE-CANZONETTES

Lyrics by John Dryden

The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Student's Cambridge Edition. Houghton Mifflin Co., Cambridge, Mass. 1909. (All works in public domain.)

I. The Lady's Song

I

A choir of bright beauties in spring did appear,
To choose a May-lady to govern the year;
All the nymphs were in white, and the sheperds in green;
The garland was giv'n and Phyllis was queen:
But Phyllis refus'd it, and sighing did say:
"I'll not wear a garland while Pan is away."

II

While Pan and fair Syrinx are fled from our shore,
The Graces are banish'd, and Love is no more:
The soft god of pleasure, that warm'd our desires,
Has broken his bow, and extinguish'd his fires;
And vows that himself and his mother will mourn,
Till Pan and fair Syrinx in triumph return.

III

Forbear your addresses, and court us no more,
For we will perform what the deity swore;
But if you dare think of deserving our charms,
Away with your sheephooks, and take to your arms:
Then laurels and myrtles your brows shall adorn,
When Pan, and his son, and fair Syrinx return.