A countertenor performance:
Jakub Jósef Orlinski - Purcell - King Arthur - The Cold Song
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The Cold Genius. King Arthur, or The British Worthy (Z. 628), by Henry Purcell and a libretto by John Dryden.

It was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, London, in late May or early June 1691.

Henry Purcell’s 1691 semi-opera, King Arthur, contains a shivering musical depiction of winter chill. The aria, What Power Art Thou comes from the fantastical “Frost Scene” in Act 3 in which Cupid awakens the “Cold Genius” (the Spirit of Winter) who, frozen stiff, would prefer to just go back to bed.
One of the most amazing aspects of this harmonically adventurous aria is how contemporary it sounds. Harsh dissonances and the strings’ sul ponticello (bowing close to the bridge) timbre evoke the sensation of biting cold.
The scene may have been inspired by the Frost Fairs held on the frozen Thames during the 1680s (pictured above). Between 1300 and 1870, during a time known as the “Little Ice Age,” Europe and North America experienced much colder winters than today and London’s Thames River, partially obstructed by Old London Bridge, routinely froze.
January 6, 2017 by Timothy Judd

The Frost Scene in the third act has always attracted praise from critics.

Edward J. Dent wrote, "The Frost Scene is one of Purcell's most famous achievements" with "its bold contrasts of style, and the masterly piling up of the music to a climax at the end of the chorus ''Tis love that has warmed us'". Thomas Gray, commenting on the 1736 production, described it as "excessive fine" and said that the Cold Genius' solo was "the finest song in the play". This aria ("What power art thou who from below") is accompanied by shivering strings, probably influenced by a scene from Act IV of Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera Isis (1677); but, as Peter Holman writes, Purcell's "daring chromatic harmonies transform the Cold Genius from the picturesque figure of Lully (or Dryden, for that matter) into a genuinely awe-inspiring character — the more so because Cupid's responses are set to such frothy and brilliant music".

It has been suggested that the whole scene was inspired by the frost fairs held on the Thames during the 1680s

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