Ex. 8-1: If Music Be the Food of Love

Composed by Henry Purcell around 1692, to a poem by Colonel Henry Heveningham. Purcell wrote music for this poem more than once. This first version, from 1692, is fairly simple. A later version, from 1695, is much more decorated — it can stretch a single word over many notes.

The title is taken from the opening line of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "If music be the food of love, play on." The words spoken by Duke Orsino became one of Shakespeare's most quoted lines. Heveningham's poem is not from the play itself, but borrows Shakespeare's famous phrase as its starting point.

Purcell (1659–1695) was the leading English composer of his time. He was organist at Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, but in his final years he gave much of his energy to the theatre, writing music for more than forty plays. He died in 1695, only about 36 years old; the cause is unknown. Old stories blame a chill caught after his wife locked him out one night, or even too much chocolate — but these are only legends.

Purcell has drawn admirers across the centuries. Benjamin Britten, the great 20th-century English composer, admired Purcell and made his own arrangement of this very song. Even Pete Townshend of the rock band The Who has said Purcell's harmonies shaped his songwriting, in hits such as "Won't Get Fooled Again."

Sung by Barbara Bonney with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music (2000)
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