Se l'aura spira is an Italian song for solo voice and bass continuo written by Girolamo Frescobaldi and was originally taken from Primo libro d'arie musicali per cantarsi (Florence, 1630). The songbook contains 23 arias for 1-3 voices and basso continuo.
It came into my repertoire in a weird and wonderful way via Nina Kreft sometime in 2010. At that time she was taking singing lessons and this was one of the songs she was studying. She had the brilliant idea that it was a song that we could possibly sing together. "Gesagt getan" I adapted a soprano/bass duet from her copy leaving out all the instrumental bits and taking loads of dotted semibreves from the bass continuo to make a simple bass part which could even be hummed if wanted.
It is a charming summery song replete with birds, bushes, roses and nymphs who "sol si dia vanto d'haver pieta". Oh, for the joys of "Hausmusik" in Germany!
The duet can be found in Se l'aura spira.

Lyrics