Shakespeare Songs
Ian Bostridge, Antonio Pappano- Gerald Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring: Come away, come away death
- Gerald Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring: Who is Silvia?
- Gerald Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring: Fear no more the heat o’ the sun
- Gerald Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring: O Mistress Mine
- Gerald Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring: It was a lover and his lass
- William Byrd: Caleno custure me
- Thomas Morley: It was a lover and his lass
- John Wilson: Take o take those lips away
- Thomas Morley: O mistress mine
- Robert Johnson: Where the bee sucks
- Robert Johnson: Full fathom five
- Franz Schubert: An Silvia D891
- Joseph Haydn: She Never Told Her Love
- Roger Quilter: 3 Shakespeare Songs: Come Away, Death Op.6 No.1
- Ivor Gurney: Under the Greenwood Tree
- Peter Warlock: Pretty Ring Time
- Peter Warlock: Sweet and Twenty
- Erich Korngold: Four Shakespeare Songs Op. 31 No.1: Desdemona's Song
- Erich Korngold: Songs of the Clown Op.29: Come Away Death
- Erich Korngold: Songs of the Clown Op.29: Adieu, Good Man Devil
- Francis Poulenc: Fancie
- Benjamin Britten: Fancie
- Michael Tippett: Songs for Ariel: Come Unto These Yellow Sands
- Michael Tippett: Songs for Ariel: Full fathom five
- Michael Tippett: Songs for Ariel: Where the Bee Sucks
- Igor Stravinsky: Three Songs from William Shakespeare: Musick to hear
- Igor Stravinsky: Three Songs from William Shakespeare: Full fadom five
- Igor Stravinsky: Three Songs from William Shakespeare: Spring (When Daisies Pied)
- Anon: When that I was but a little tiny boy
“Shakespeare has been a part of my life as a performer from the very start” says Ian Bostridge, “Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream and Ades's The Tempest have been milestones for me as a singer. It has been a great joy to rediscover the music in Shakespeare's incomparable texts and the music that has been written over the past four centuries to clothe them, from the simplest songs of his own contemporaries, through the melodic delights of the likes of Haydn, Britten and Finzi to the matchless complexity of the late Stravinsky. Working again with Tony Pappano has been a joy; and making my first recording with a long term musical partner, lutenist Liz Kenny, a particular pleasure.”
This album is a collection of some of the greatest settings of the words of Shakespeare, ranging from composers of the time such as Robert Johnson and William Byrd, 18th and 19th century songs by Haydn, Arne and Schubert, through to the 20th century settings by Warlock, Poulenc, Finzi, Korngold and Stravinsky. As guests Ian has invited his friends pianist Sir Antonio Pappano, flautist Adam Walker, violist Lawrence Power and clarinettist Michael Collins on the Stravinsky Three Songs, and the lutenist Elizabeth Kenny.