What power art thou (King Arthur)

King Arthur was a collaboration between Purcell and Dryden, staged in London in 1691, and the Frost Scene is its strangest invention. The Cold Genius is woken against his will from beneath the ice, and Purcell sets his protest to a line that shivers — every note repeated in short detached groups, the string writing shaking with him. It is one of the earliest deliberate uses of a musical device to depict physical sensation, and singers have been finding new ways to be cold in it ever since.