The Sound Of Shakespeare

CD1

1. Nuttmigs and Ginger (consort)
2. Mother Watkins Ale (consort)
3. Barrow Faustus Dreame (consort)
4. Stingo (violin, consort)
5. Paggington’s Pound (EVE, consort)
6. Bony sweet boy (pandora)
7. Willsons Wilde (cittern, pandora)
8. Care charminge Sleepe (EVE, lute)
9. Short Allmain (lute duet)
10. Away delights (EVE, lute)
11. Robin is to the Greenwood gone
12. [Passamezzo Moderno] (lute duet)
13. Green Garters (violin, consort)
14. Fortune my Foe (EVE, pandora, lute)
15. Chi passa per ‘sta strada
16.  Bonny sweet Robin (lyra-viol)
17. Guillims Dumpe (lyra-viol)
18. O Deathe, rock me a sleepe
19. Browning my dere (recorders)
20. Hackney (recorders)
21. Welcome Home (EVE, consort)
22. What if a Day (flute, lyra-viol)
23. Green Sleeves (consort)
24. Grimstock (consort)

CD2

1. Joyne Hands (consort)
2. Phillips Paven (consort)
3. Galliard to Phillips Paven (consort)
4. A lieta vita (Sing wee and chaunt it)
5. O griefe, even on the bud
6. Our bonny boots could toote it
7. Pavin (lute)
8. Gaillard (lute)
9. Sola Soletta (consort)
10. In Nomine Pavin (consort)
11. Gaillard to in Nomine (consort)
12. La Coranto (consort)
13. Sleepe slumb’ring eyes (EVE, lute)
14. Thyrsis and Milla (JP, lute)
15. Mousieurs Almaine (consort)
16. The Sacred End Pavin (consort)
17. Galliard to Sacred End (consort)
18. Pavan (lute)
19. Galliard (lute)
20. A Painted Tale (EVE, viol, lute)
21. Faire in a morne (EVE, viol, lute)
22. Sayd I that Amarillis
23. Now is the Gentle Season
24. Harke! Alleluia cheerly
25. Hard by a cristall fountaine
26. Now is the Moneth of Maying (consort)
27. O Mistresse mine (JP, lute, pandora)
28. O Mistresse mine (consort)
29. My Lord of Oxenfords maske

CD3

1. Go crystal tears
2. Awake sweet  love, thou art returned
3. His golden locks Time hath to silver turned
4. Now, O now I needs must part
5. A shepherd in a shade
6. What if I never speed?
7. Ye sacred muses
8. Lulla, lullaby
9. Who made thee, Hob, forsake the plough?
10. Come, woeful Orpheus
11. Though Amaryllis dance in green
12. Corant (lute)
13. Where the bee sucks (Shakespeare: The Tempest)
14. Fantasia I (lute)
15. Hark, hark! the lark! (Shakespeare: Cymbeline)
16. Pavan I (lute)
17. Come, heavy sleep (Middleton: The Witch)
18. Galliard I (lute)
19. Full fathom five (Shakespeare: The Tempest)
20. Alman I (lute)
21. Have you seen the white lily grow?
22. Alman III (lute)
23. Tell me, dearest

The life of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was more than a time of great theatre.  It was a period when music flourished, a time of saucy street ballads, of songs to the lute, of consort music and madrigals. The reign of Shakespeare’s monarch Elizabeth I (1558–1603) was seen as a golden age, as an era in which arts like music, painting, poetry and drama flourished as never before. One has only to read documents of the period to sense the great love of dances, lute songs and music for instrumental and vocal ensembles. Streets, squares and the theatres themselves rang with the popular “Broadside Ballads” relating everyday events, along with such evergreen melodies as “Greensleeves”. At the court of Queen Elizabeth, in the palaces of the nobility and the houses of prosperous commoners, the English enjoyed dances, lute-songs and madrigals by Morley, Dowland and Byrd. Thanks to great artists of the early music scene, this seemingly distant world comes to pulsating life before us. The many-faceted collection In the Streets and Theatres of London under the direction of the eminent lutenist Paul O’Dette presents ballads and songs of the period, some by anonymous composers and others from the pen of Shakespeare’s contemporary Thomas Morley (CD 1 & 2). Real treasures have come down to us from “Shakespeare’s Lutenist”, in the songs and pieces for lute by court lutenist Robert Johnson – here sung by “Queen of Ancient Music” Emma Kirkby with Anthony Rooley. The celebrated Hilliard Ensemble is in attendance with madrigals by Dowland and Byrd – a form that was then at the peak of its perfection (CD 3).