#arcadelt

Arcadelt- Il bianco e dolce cigno

Jacques Arcadelt (1507-1568) - arr. Liszt Ferenc (1811-1886)

Király Csaba - organ (Sopronhorpács, 2013)

I once rehearsed this song for months, but never sing it on stage. Still, I love this song. By the way, it's my choir's recording. Enjoy.

I thought my fire for you was burning no more

But then the closest it comes the more it burns.

With disdain I thought this fire had gone out

But with jealousy she rekindles it more that the wind would

O you, my enemy, and your burning beauty!

I Grieve and you have no mercy on me!

If you would but pity me, beloved Nanina,

Arcadelt Iniustissim'amore ("Most Unjust Love")

The Consort of Musicke

Jacques Arcadelt (1507 – 1568) - Margot labourez les vignes, chanson for 4 voices, S. 8/42

Jacques Arcadelt's (Jacob Arcadelt 1507 - 1568) "Il bianco e dolce cigno".

The white and sweet swan

dies singing, and I,

weeping, reach the end of my life.

Strange and different fate,

that he dies disconsolate

and I die a blessed death,

which in dying fills me

full of joy and desire.

If in dying, were I to feel no other pain,

I would be content to die a thousand deaths a day.

... as an example, she argues that the central conceit of "Il bianco e dolce cigno" the joyful orgasm that makes the lovers want to die a thousand deaths a day was both displayed and contained by its performative context.

It is not difficult to see how madrigals like "Il bianco e dolce cigno" might fulfill medical prescriptions for sexual arousal. The singers, in their small, physically proximate circle, recite wanton words in a context of musical friction ... The madrigal's lightweight punch line, emphasized by the musical joke that sets it, now becomes an element of social control. When a suggestive text is combined with the physical pleasure of singing, sexual tension results.

... Musical madrigals, like the poetic idioms of their texts, pushed but never broke the limits of decorum, providing a kind of safe sex. The singing of the madrigal constituted flirtation, but not foreplay; therefore the singers could enjoy this sexual tension without pursuing it to its conclusion. Even the discipline and adherence to a strict set of rules, mandated by the activity of singing, Macy suggests, contained the erotic potential of music making.