Ralph Vaughan Williams - Orpheus with His Lute (Igor Sirotinsky, guitar)

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Orpheus with His Lute
guitar arrangement by Igor Sirotinsky
The sheet music is available. Please email me at 𝙞𝙜𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙠𝙮(𝙖𝙩)𝙜𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙡.𝙘𝙤𝙢
Recorded at 1929 Art Deco private museum Villa de Bondt (Ghent, Belgium).
The song Orpheus with his lute was written by Vaughan Williams somewhere circa 1903 before his deep devotion to English folk music. The composer used a text fragment from Shakespeare's play "Henry VIII" (Act III, Scene 1).
Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
Orpheus by William Shakespeare is about Orpheus and how he softens and in some ways hypnotizes or lures anyone or thing that hears him sing or play his lute. Orpheus is the son of the god Apollo and the Muse Calliope. This poem talks about all the things that his music made other things do. He makes mountains bow, plants and flowers spring up and billows of the sea hang their heads with the sound of his lute (or lyre in the original myth).
In Orpheus, Shakespeare uses personification multiple times. The use of personification in this poem is used to emphasize the effects of the music Orpheus plays with his lute on the different aspects of nature. It shows that his music was so good he could make all of these different pieces of nature do animate things.
Shakespeare entirely focuses on Orpheus and his talents with the lyre/lute in this poem. He gives many examples that show all of the things that Orpheus could amaze and get the attention of.