I first joined choir when I was in Secondary School. It became an integrated part of my life soon. The first song I sang as a choir member was Ad Una Fresca Riva by Luca Marenzio. It was selected as the set piece for SAB choirs for SYF Central Judging (back when there was no common song for all arrangements of the choir). I remembered having lots of fun doing the piece. We did not have a recording to model on and the only additional help we had was a student from another school who studied Italian as his third language.

As I moved on, the tune of the song is still stuck in my head and half of the first stanza of the lyrics became my personal favourite to warm up my vocals. I can no longer remember how to pronounce the rest of the lyrics.

Ad una fresca riva
Guidommi Amor dove era la mia Diva,
Che con gli occhi, co’l crin e’l visadorno
Fea nascer fiore e vaghe erbett’intorno.

I tried searching for the song on Google. I found one recording, but it was an incomplete one (and somehow it got deleted). Google keeps throwing out pages with the sheet music. So here is an open request. If there is anybody with a complete recording of the song, please forward it to me. I will be grateful to you.