Farya Faraji | White as Lilies - English Renaissance Song @faryafaraji | Uploaded October 2023 | Updated October 2024, 3 days ago.
Music & lyrics by John Dowland, vocals & arrangement by Farya Faraji, starring my man Christophe Chapleau.
This is another song by renowned 16th century English composer John Dowland, a composer who excelled in the polyphonic forms of Western European music popularised in his day and age. The arrangement consists of violas, a flute and a lute, playing the entire polyphonic arrangement below the vocals, who support the main monophonic vocal line. You will find other versions of this song employing the full polyphony with the vocals, but the practice of using the polyphonic parts as instrumental supports for the main melody was still common historically, and this arrangement will provide an alternative insight into the many ways this song would have been performed in its day and age.
I didn’t have time to learn this era’s pronunciation so I chose to go with the conventional pronunciation used by English singers of the Early Music repertoire—a sort of heightened version of Received Pronunciation, with more exaggerated vowel qualities, like more rounded vowel sounds, and R’s sometimes pronounced as alveolar taps or trills; a similar pronunciation is used in English opera also.
Lyrics:
White as lilies was her face
When she smilèd she beguilèd
Quitting faith with foul disgrace
Virtue, service thus neglected
Heart with sorrow hath infected
When I swore my heart my own
She disdainèd, I complainèd;
Yet she left me overthrown
Careless of my bitter grieving
Ruthless bent to no relieving
Vows and oaths and faith assured
Constant ever, changing never
Yet she could not bе procured
To believе my pains exceeding
From her scant neglect proceeding
Oh that Love should have the art
By surmises, and disguises
To destroy a faithful heart
Or that wanton-looking women
Should reward their friends as foemen
All in vain is Ladies’ love
Quickly choosèd, shortly loosèd
For their pride is to remove
Out alas their looks first won us
And their pride hath straight undone us
To thyself the sweetest fair
Thou hath wounded, and confounded
Changeless faith with soul despair
And my service hath envied
And my succours hath denied
By thine error thou hast lost
Hart unfainèd, truth unstainèd
And the swain that lovèd most
More assured in love than many
More despised in love than any
For my heart, though set at naught
Since you will it, spoil and kill it!
I will never change my thought
But grieve that beauty e'er was born
Thus to answer love with scorn
Music & lyrics by John Dowland, vocals & arrangement by Farya Faraji, starring my man Christophe Chapleau.
This is another song by renowned 16th century English composer John Dowland, a composer who excelled in the polyphonic forms of Western European music popularised in his day and age. The arrangement consists of violas, a flute and a lute, playing the entire polyphonic arrangement below the vocals, who support the main monophonic vocal line. You will find other versions of this song employing the full polyphony with the vocals, but the practice of using the polyphonic parts as instrumental supports for the main melody was still common historically, and this arrangement will provide an alternative insight into the many ways this song would have been performed in its day and age.
I didn’t have time to learn this era’s pronunciation so I chose to go with the conventional pronunciation used by English singers of the Early Music repertoire—a sort of heightened version of Received Pronunciation, with more exaggerated vowel qualities, like more rounded vowel sounds, and R’s sometimes pronounced as alveolar taps or trills; a similar pronunciation is used in English opera also.
Lyrics:
White as lilies was her face
When she smilèd she beguilèd
Quitting faith with foul disgrace
Virtue, service thus neglected
Heart with sorrow hath infected
When I swore my heart my own
She disdainèd, I complainèd;
Yet she left me overthrown
Careless of my bitter grieving
Ruthless bent to no relieving
Vows and oaths and faith assured
Constant ever, changing never
Yet she could not bе procured
To believе my pains exceeding
From her scant neglect proceeding
Oh that Love should have the art
By surmises, and disguises
To destroy a faithful heart
Or that wanton-looking women
Should reward their friends as foemen
All in vain is Ladies’ love
Quickly choosèd, shortly loosèd
For their pride is to remove
Out alas their looks first won us
And their pride hath straight undone us
To thyself the sweetest fair
Thou hath wounded, and confounded
Changeless faith with soul despair
And my service hath envied
And my succours hath denied
By thine error thou hast lost
Hart unfainèd, truth unstainèd
And the swain that lovèd most
More assured in love than many
More despised in love than any
For my heart, though set at naught
Since you will it, spoil and kill it!
I will never change my thought
But grieve that beauty e'er was born
Thus to answer love with scorn
