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If My Complaints Could Passions move (John Dowland)

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Music files

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  • CPDL #17942:   Network.png
Editor: David Newman (submitted 2008-08-21).   Score information: Letter, 2 pages, 125 kbytes       Copyright: Public Domain
Edition notes: Cross posting by Art Song Central - Edition in G minor
  • CPDL #13118: Network.pngMIDI and NoteWorthy Composer files available.
Editor: Brian Russell (submitted 2006-11-17).   Copyright: CPDL
Edition notes: Listed alphabetically by language/nationality and composer.
Editor: Anders Stenberg (submitted 2006-03-25).   Score information: A4, 4 pages, 384 kbytes   Copyright: CPDL
Edition notes: This edition contains the choir parts and a transcription of the lute part from the original tabulature. Lute part also playable on a classical guitar esp. with Capodastro on 3.d fret.
  • CPDL #5471: Network.png PDF, MIDI and Capella 4 files available.
Editor: Ulrich Alpers (submitted 2003-08-18).   Score information: A4   Copyright: Personal
Edition notes: a cappella
  • CPDL #988: Network.png PDF, MIDI and ABC files available.
Editor: Laura Conrad (submitted 2000-06-21).   Copyright: GnuGPL
Edition notes: in partbook format, a cappella.


General Information

Title: If My Complaints Could Passions move
Composer: John Dowland

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Lute song

Language: English
Instruments: Lute
Published: 1597

Description: No IV from First Booke of Songs or Ayres (1597)

External websites:

Original text and translations

English.png English text

If my complaints could passions move,
Or make Love see wherein I suffer wrong:
My passions were enough to prove,
That my despairs had govern'd me too long.
O Love, I live and die in thee,
Thy grief in my deep sighs still speaks:
Thy wounds do freshly bleed in me,
My heart for thy unkindness breaks:
Yet thou dost hope when I despair,
And when I hope, thou mak'st me hope in vain.
Thou say's thou canst my harms repair,
Yet for redress, thou let'st me still complain.

Can Love be rich, and yet I want?
Is Love my judge, and yet am I condemn'd?
Thou plenty hast, yet me dost scant:
Thou made a god, and yet thy pow'r contemn'd.
That I do live, it is thy pow'r:
That I desire it is thy worth:
If Love doth make men's lives too sour,
Let me not love, nor live henceforth.
Die shall my hopes, but not my faith,
That you that of my fall may hearers be
May here despair, which truly saith,
I was more true to Love than Love to me.

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