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Silent Worship

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The song "Silent Worship" is a 1928 adaptation by Arthur Somervell of the aria "Non lo dirò col labbro" from Handel's 1728 opera Tolomeo (Ptolemy). Somervell's English-language adaptation is for voice and piano, and it has remained a popular classic in song recitals and home music-making. Other arrangements of Somervell's translation include solo song accompanied by a modern symphony orchestra, and male choir.

Contents

"Silent Worship" is featured in the 1996 film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Emma. Although Somervell's English translation was done more than a century after Austen's novel, the original Italian aria was recorded in Jane Austen's own handwritten songbooks.

Musically the song is a simple transcription of the original — with the orchestral parts reduced for piano, one or two slight changes in harmony, and the instrumental ending (postlude) omitted. In the 1996 film Emma, the introduction is also shortened.

The text is treated quite differently in the two versions:

  • In the original Italian baroque aria as set by Handel, the first part of the aria uses a single couplet to express a single two-fold thought: "I will not say it with my lips, they do not have the courage". The words are repeated several times, to emphasize the lack of courage. The second part of the aria expresses a complement to the first, its antithesis — twice as many words for half as much music — and therefore not repeated: "Perhaps, with sparks from yearning eyes, my gaze will speak to reveal how I am consumed by flames". The first part of the aria is then repeated, in A-B-A da capo aria form.
  • Somervell's English adaptation took the basic thought and recast it to suit the aesthetic of a later era. Somervell expanded a two-line description of a static emotional state into a 16-line narrative, in which only a single line is repeated. Even the da capo — the reprise of the first part at the end — has a new paraphrase of the first text rather than the simple verbatim repetition which the baroque aria uses.

    • "Silent Worship"

    Did you not hear My Lady
    Go down the garden singing
    Blackbird and thrush were silent
    To hear the alleys ringing.

    Oh saw you not My Lady
    Out in the garden there
    Shaming the rose and lily
    For she is twice as fair.

    Though I am nothing to her
    Though she must rarely look at me
    And though I could never woo her
    I love her till I die.

    Surely you heard My Lady
    Go down the garden singing
    Silencing all the songbirds
    And setting the alleys ringing.

    But surely you see My Lady
    Out in the garden there
    Rivaling the glittering sunshine
    With a glory of golden hair.

    References

    Silent Worship Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA