The Power of Music (James Corfe)

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• (Posted 2021-05-04)  CPDL #64306: 

Editor: Christopher Shaw (submitted 2021-05-04).   Score information: A4, 2 pages, 206 kB   Copyright: CC BY SA

Edition notes: Please click on the link for preview/playback/PDF download. Figuredbass realised editorially.

General Information

Title: The Power of Music
Composer: James Corfe
Lyricist: William Strode
Number of voices: 1v   Voicing: Solo high
Genre: Secular, Aria

Language: English
Instruments: Basso continuo

First published: c.1745 Twelve English songs
Description: Probably intended for use in one of the London pleasure gardens.

Original text and translations

English text

When Orpheus sweetly did complain,
On warbling lyre with mournful strain,
How his Eurydice was slain.
Each murm'ring brook its course forsook,
And list'ning glided o'er the plain.

A note so soft, a lyre so shrill
And trembling, touch'd with so much skill,
Mov'd ev'ry mountain, ev'ry hill.
The aspine tree, as well as he,
Began to play and learn to trill.

The savage bestial all around,
By nature fierce and desp'rate found,
Were sooth'd to softness by the sound.
And as he played they after strayed,
Subservient trod th'enchanted ground.

If in the sounds of music dwell
Such pow'rful charms and magic spell,
As drew Eurydice from hell;
Restore my song, Belinda gone,
And right the sounds of music tell.