O Happy Fair or The Loadstars (mp3)
by William Shield
Choir - MP3 Download

This lovely trio is a curiously "out of context" setting by William Shield of words from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
In Shield's setting the three voices simply admire a beautiful woman, in enticing harmonies - a fine piece of music deservedly part of the repertoire of vocal trios everywhere; but in the play the words form part of a speech of jealousy between childhood friends and the potential end of that friendship 

The scene in Shakespeare's original: 
The fairy world - in the form of Puck - has interfered most clumsily with the passions of the human world, with the result that human lovers are confused in their loves: Demetrius, Helena's lover, now loves her friend Hermia, who doesn't love him, and he ignores Helena, who loves him but is already becoming somewhat insecure about the powers of her feminine attraction. Helena is therefore jealous of Hermia's beauty.

O happy, happy, happy, happy fair 
Your eyes are loadstars and your tongue sweet air 

More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear, 
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear, 
more tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,