About this work:
Perhaps the most famous of Shakespeare's lyrics, set here for solo soprano with flute and piano accompaniment.
The sound file was generated with software using synth choral ah voices as a demo, even though the vocal is supposed to be solo.
The lyrics are in the score, but for convenience I give them below.
Version of 17 December 2019.
I’d be willing to work with performers to revise this composition to better meet their performance needs. I can be contacted via my permissions page, link below.
Please note that while this composition is based on a poem in the public domain, my musical setting of it is an original creative work under copyright. You may feel free to share or link to it by the usual means. For performance permission, please
see my permissions page.
The Lyrics:
Who is Silvia by William Shakespeare
Who is Silvia? What is she?
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.