Playing on my Apple Music when I woke this morning (4/27): the trio and chorus “They shall be as happy as they’re fair” from Act V of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, Z. 629, with its forward-driving syncopations accompanying the repeated “happy, happy”. A wild wedding song to start the day:
They shall be as happy, happy, as they’re fair,
Love shall fill all the places of care;
And ev’ry time the Sun shall display his rising light,
It shall be to them a new Wedding day,
And when he sets a new Nuptial night.
Every day a new festive wedding day, every night a new conjugal wedding night; let’s dance!
I was profoundly happy.
[I had hoped to insert here a link to a suitably brilliant performance of the trio and chorus, specifically the 1995 Warner Classics / Teldec recording of the Arnold Schoenberg Choir and the Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt — with soprano Barbara Bonney, soprano Elisabeth von Magnus, and bass Robert Holl. But my attempts to capture the link ran aground. I do recommend it.]
[While I’m into footnotes, note the Z number for the Purcell semi-opera (a version of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, one theme of which is the wedding of Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairies). A Z number isn’t the index of FQ among Zwicky favorites by Purcell, but the number of FQ in the catalog of Purcell’s works by Franklin Zimmerman. See my 4/10/26 posting “Z number”.]
A repeat performance. This was the second time this song had delighted me. From my 4/20/22 posting “Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen!” — an enormously long and deeply personal posting that careens from one topic to another, taking off from
… what happened to be playing on my night-time Apple Music when I arose very briefly … just after midnight on Monday (4/18).
Bright and, oh Jesus, joyous. (Joy is a huge thing in my life, right up there with playfulness and sexual pleasure.) Solid Baroque. Oh, in English, and it seems to be about happiness. Must be Henry Purcell; bright joy was one of his musical things, and he did it magnificently, again and again. (A moment’s pause here to express gratitude for a world that has Purcell in it.)
Yes, of course, The Fairy Queen (or as Purcell had it at the time, The Fairy-Queen; just to note that these fairies might be playful, but they’re also creatures of power). Specifically, the ravishing “They shall be as happy as they are fair”.
(I then supplied a link to William Christie & Les Arts Florissants performing the chorus “They shall be as happy as they are fair” .)
Dance music. From above, the song’s forward-driving syncopations accompanying the repeated “happy, happy”, making it superb dance music. Then just yesterday, at a regular singing of the Palo Alto Sacred Harp group (which I take part in over Zoom), we sang one of my favorites, SH 475, A Thankful Heart, and I was reminded that the setting of the 1760 text (by John Hocutt in 1989) was rhythmically complex in ways that went beyond its phrasal repetitions in the choruses: Thy grace impart, Thy grace impart and my journey shine, my journey shine.
The music is reproduced in my 11/2/14 posting “Sacred Harp by Cantus”. Here’s the full text:
verse 1:
Give me a calm, a thankful heart
From ev’ry murmur free;chorus 1:
The blessing of Thy grace impart, Thy grace impart,
The blessing of Thy grace impart, Thy grace impart,
And make me live to Thee,
And make me live toThee.verse 2:
Let the sweet hope that Thou art mine
My life and death attend;chorus 2:
Thy presence through my journey shine, my journey shine.
Thy presence through my journey shine, my journey shine.
And crown my journey’s end,
And crown my journey’s end.
[For SH 475, I’m able to get links to really fine recordings of various Ireland Sacred Harp Conventions singing it, but I don’t know how to get permission to reproduce them in my postings. But the recordings are out there, not hard to get to.]
What struck me yesterday was the forward-driving syncopations that made this 4/4 hymn of life and death sound jerky, even danceable. There are textual accents on the 3rd beat; rising 8th-note figures frequently on the 4th beat, sometimes on the 1st or 3rd. Coming at different places in the four parts (treble, alto, tenor, bass), as if the rhythms were being passed around from one part to another. Subtle, but satisfying.
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