Sweeter than roses (1695)

One of the last of many items of incidental music Purcell wrote for the London theatre between 1680 and 1695, Sweeter than roses is also one of the most inspired. The play in question was Norton’s Pausanius, the Betrayer of his Country which was staged at Drury Lane by Thomas Southerne in 1695 and published in the same year. Although the song is commonly performed these days in the imaginative realization with piano accompaniment by Benjamin Britten, the vocal line of the comparatively extended slow introduction is bewitchingly beautiful in whatever version it is heard.