O Solitude | Henry PURCELL | Pieter De Praetere & Thomas Langlois

Henry Purcell "O Solitude" Z.406

Performed by:
Pieter De Praetere - Countertenor
Thomas Langlois - Theorbo

Igor Sirotinsky - director of photography
Alain De Coen - lighting

Filmed at Arca Theater (Ghent, Belgium)
And on location: Campo Santo Cemetery (Ghent, Belgium)

Sound engineer & editing: Jo Tavernier
Recording Supervisor: Diederik Glorieux

Studio: Kong (Ghent, Belgium)

Lyrics:
O solitude, my sweetest choice,
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult and from noise,
How ye my restless thoughts delight!

O heav’ns! what content is mine
To see those trees, which have appear’d
From the nativity of time,
And which all ages have rever’d,
To look today as fresh and green
As when their beauties first were seen.

Oh, how agreeable a sight
These hanging mountains do appear,
Which th’ unhappy would invite
To finish all their sorrows here,
When their hard fate makes them endure
Such woes as only death can cure.

Oh, how I solitude adore!
That element of noblest wit,
Where I have learned Apollo’s lore,
Without the pains to study it.

For thy sake I in love am grown
With what thy fancy does pursue;
But when I think upon my own,
I hate it for that reason too,
Because it needs must hinder me
From seeing and from serving thee.

O solitude, oh, how I solitude adore!


Original French text
Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant (1594-1661)
Translated to English
Katherine Philips (1631-1664)