- you are music ev’rywhere - Emma Kirkby canta Purcell

     Vou-me deitar, vou morrer num buraco de árvore vazia,
     O corvo e o gato,
     A coruja e o rato
     Hão-de  cantarolar a minha elegia.
                                                                         Purcell, Bess of Bedlam

A conjugação feliz da já mítica voz de Emma Kirkby (e de Catherine Bott) com Chistopher Hogwood a dirigir a Academy of Ancient Music em obras de Purcell foi um dos milagres interpretativos das novas formações barrocas de fins do séc XX. Ninguém desde então conseguiu reunir vozes, direcção e orquestra tão perfeitas e coerentes.

Alguns exemplos, com o texto a acompanhar, pois segui-lo faz parte do prazer audiófilo. Muito boa música para toda a semana.


Purcell, If music be the food of love - Emma Kirkby. dir. Hogwood


If music be the food of love,
Sing on till I am fill’d with joy;
For then my list’ning soul you move
To pleasures that can never cloy.
Your eyes, your mien, your tongue declare
That you are music ev’rywhere.

Pleasures invade both eye and ear,
So fierce the transports are, they wound,
And all my senses feasted are,
Tho’ yet the treat is only sound,
Sure I must perish by your charms,
Unless you save me in your arms.


From Silent Shades and the Elysian Groves (Z370) foi uma canção publicada por Purcell em 1683. Ficaria conhecida como  Bess of Bedlam ou Mad Bess, por ser a típica canção sobre a mulher que enlouqueceu por desgosto de amor. Num longo panfleto rancoroso, Bess lança o alerta Ladies beware ye!, e a terminar o narrador eleva Bess à dimensão Real.


From silent shades and the Elysian groves
Where sad departed spirits mourn their loves
From crystal streams and from that country where
Jove crowns the fields with flowers all the year,
Poor senseless Bess, cloth'd in her rags and folly,
Is come to cure her lovesick melancholy.

"Bright Cynthia kept her revels late 
While Mab, the Fairy Queen, did dance,
And Oberon did sit in state
When Mars at Venus ran his lance.

In yonder cowslip lies my dear,
Entomb'd in liquid gems of dew;
Each day I'll water it with a tear,
Its fading blossom to renew.

For since my love is dead and all my joys are gone,
Poor Bess for his sake
A garland will make,
My music shall be a groan.

I'll lay me down and die within some hollow tree,
The rav'n and cat,
The owl and bat
Shall warble forth my elegy.

Did you not see my love as he pass'd by you?
His two flaming eyes, if he comes nigh you,
They will scorch up your hearts: Ladies beware ye,
Les he should dart a glance that may ensnare ye!

Hark! Hark! I hear old Charon bawl,
His boat he will no longer stay,
And furies lash their whips and call:
Come, come away, come, come away.

Poor Bess will return to the place whence she came,
Since the world is so mad she can hope for no cure.
For love's grown a bubble, a shadow, a name,
Which fools do admire and wise men endure.

Cold and hungry am I grown.
Ambrosia will I feed upon,
Drink Nectar still and sing."
Who is content,
Does all sorrow prevent?
And Bess in her straw,
Whilst free from the law,
In her thoughts is as great, great as a king.


'An Evening Hymn', aqui com Hogwood ao cravo e Anthony Rooley em alaúde.


Now, now that the sun hath veild his light
And bid the world goodnight;
To the soft bed my body I dispose,
But where shall my soul repose?
Dear, dear God, even in Thy arms,
And can there be any so sweet security!
Then to thy rest, O my soul!
And singing, praise the mercy
That prolongs thy days.
Hallelujah!


Para acabar, um dos greatest hits de Purcell,

We the spirits of the air, de Indian Queen, com Kirkby, Bott, e dir. Hogwood


We the spirits of the air
that of human things take care,
out of pity now descend
to forewarn what woes attend.

Greatness clogg'd with scorn decays,
With the slave no empire stays.

Cease to languish then in vain,
since never to be loved again.


Uma prenda para admiradores de Kirkby. :)