Those hours, that with gentle work did...

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) , from Sonnets, no. 5

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Dorothea Austin , no title, 1985-6 [narrator and woodwind quintet], from Mirrors, no. 1.
by Stephan Baekers , "Shakespeare -- Sonnet V", 1984. [medium voice and piano]
by Michael G. Cunningham (1937-) , "Those hours, that with gentle work did frame", op. 112 (1985) [medium high voice and piano], from Shakespeare Sonnets, Set 2
by David Loeb , no title, 1980 [baritone and piano], from Three Shakespeare Sonnets, no. ?
by Richard Simpson (-1876) , "Sonnet V", 1864. [low voice and piano]
by David Winkler , "Sonnet V", 1978. [mezzosoprano, tenor and ten instruments]
by David Winkler , "Sonnet V", 1981 [SATB quartet and piano], from Cycle for Several Voices and Piano, no. 5.

by Pauls Dambis , no title, 1976, first performed 1977 [mezzosoprano, flute, percussion, violoncello, and piano], from Šekspīra mūzika, no. ?

FRE French (François Pierre Guillaume Guizot)
ITA Italian (Ferdinando Albeggiani)

Date added to the website: 2007-10-07.

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Sheet music:

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Books:

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  The Book of Lieder: The Original Texts of Over 1000 Songs [amazon.com]
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