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Track(s) taken from CDA66878

Three Shakespeare Songs, Op 6

composer
1905
author of text
Nos 1 & 2 from Twelfth Night; No 3 from As You Like It

John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Recording details: February 1996
Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Antony Howell & Julian Millard
Release date: September 1996
Total duration: 6 minutes 3 seconds
 

Other recordings available for download

David John Pike (baritone), Isabelle Trüb (piano)

Reviews

‘An exceptionally good tenor and an equally distinguished accompanist … a fine recital, admirably recorded and presented with excellent notes’ (Gramophone)

«Musiques élégantes, interprètes distingués: John Mark Ainsley a un timbre séduisant» (Diapason, France)
The ‘Three Shakespeare Songs’ were composed in 1905, the first and most successful of Quilter’s seventeen settings of Shakespeare’s words. Come away, death shows Quilter’s ability to adapt the phrases of his music to suit the stress of the words; the two verses are nearly strophic, but not quite, and the climax appears on the word Shakespeare surely designed for the purpose, ‘weep’. Warlock’s comment on O mistress mine perhaps balances Trevor Hold’s opinion (expressed in his excellent study of Quilter’s songs: The Walled-in Garden, Thames, 1996) that it ‘is the weakest of the set … the worst flaw is the quite unjustified repetition of the opening line of the poem’. A possible justification can be to use this repetition to show the singer’s realization that his light-hearted remarks are only too true, and that ‘what’s to come’ really is unsure. The final cadence, far from being ‘excruciatingly sloppy’ as Trevor Hold would have it, is for some listeners at least an expression of resignation at the transitoriness of joy. The third song is more straightforward, save that the mood of the poem is not. Is it defiant, miserable, cheerful, or what? Quilter manages to make all these interpretations possible in this rhythmically powerful setting.

from notes by Michael Pilkington © 1996

Other albums featuring this work

Vaughan Williams, Finzi & Quilter: Whither must I wander? & other songs
Studio Master: SIGCD314Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
Songs to Shakespeare
CDA66480Download only
A Treasury of English Song
This album is not yet available for downloadHYP30Super-budget price sampler — Deleted
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