dwsChorale: Music

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This madrigal by Arcadelt is a somewhat different take on the "swan singing as she dies" from the one that we anglophones are used to in Gibbons' rather more satirical "The silver swan", but this madrigal may well have inspired Gibbons' one.

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Il bianco e dolce cigno
Cantando more
ed io piangendo
giung'al fin del viver mio

Stran' e diversa sorte
Ch'ei more sconsolato
ed io moro beato

Morte che nel morire
m'empie di gioia
tutt'e di desire
Se nel morir
altro dolor non sento
di mille mort'il di
sarei contento

The sweet white swan sings as he dies
and I lament as I reach the end of my life
Strange and different fate
that he dies unhappy
and I die happy
Death that in dying fills me with joy and desire
if in dying I feel no other pain
I would be content to die a thousand deaths a day.