Weldon: Judgment of Paris

This edition makes available one of the few large dramatic works by John Weldon, who may have been the actual composer of The Tempest, formerly attributed to his teacher Henry Purcell. While Weldon's The Judgment of Paris was the winner of a 1701 competition to determine who could "compose the best" English masque or opera, his is the only one of the three extant entries that has not yet been published. The edition is based on the only known copy of the score, an eighteenth-century manuscript in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. The publication of The Judgment of Paris makes available an important resource for the study of English theater music between the death of Purcell and the arrival of Handel.

A pastoral symphony

Sonata [1]

[Sonata 2]

From high Olympus and the realms above (Mercury)

Chorus: Forbear thy woolly flock to feed

O Hermes, I thy godhead know (Paris)

This radiant fruit behold (Mercury)

O ravishing delight (Paris)

Fear not, mortal, none shall harm thee (Mercury)

Happy thou of human race (Mercury, Paris)

Chorus: Happy thou of human race

[Symphony for Juno]

Saturnia, wife of thund’ring Jove, am I (Juno)

Symphony [for Pallas]

This way, mortal, bend thy eyes (Pallas)

Hither turn thee, gentle swain (Venus)

Trio: Hither turn thee, gentle swain (Venus, Pallas, Juno)

Distracted I turn, but I cannot decide (Paris)

Let ambition fire thy mind (Juno)

Chorus: Let ambition fire thy mind

Let not toils of empire fright (Juno)

Awake, awake, thy spirits raise (Pallas)

Hark, hark! The glorious voice of war (Pallas)

Symph[ony for Pallas]

O what joys does conquest yield (Pallas, Attendants)

Chorus: O how glorious ’tis to see

To me, kind swain, the prize resign (Pallas)

[Symphony for Venus]

Stay, lovely youth, delay thy choice (Venus)

Chorus: One only joy mankind can know

Nature fram’d thee sure for loving (Venus)

I yield, I yield, O take the prize (Paris)

Chorus: Hither all ye Graces, all ye Loves

Early Music Review 67 (Feb. 2001): 6-7; Margaret Laurie, Music & Letters, 2000