Title: If Music be the Food of Love
Composer: Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Author: Colonel Henry Heveningham (1651-1700)
- First seven words are part of a well known quote from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Free at Art Song Central (PDF files):
- PDF: If Music be the Food of Love
- Key: F Minor
- Range: C4 – F5
- Source: Twenty Four Songs by English Composers of the 17th & 18th Centuries
Elsewhere on the Internet:
Mp3:
MIDI:
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.
- Recmusic.org has the text.
