045

 

Gibbons - The Silver Swan

 

The silver Swan, who, living, had no Note,

when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat. Leaning her breast against the reedy shore, thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:

"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes! More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."

 

This is one of the most popular madrigals and written about 1620. The anonymous text tells of the enriched voice of a swan just before she dies. rather like a boy's treble range before it breaks.

 

As a choir-trainer I could never cope with that, which is one of the reasons why in 1977 I came to teach at HLC: all girls, with only a gentle drift down with age, unless they were smokers of course!