Grammy Award winners Ian Bostridge and Sir Antonio Pappano have been working together on the stage and in the recording studio for over 20 years. Together they have produced award-winning recordings and played sold out concert halls all over the world to huge critical acclaim. Now they embark on a project marking the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare with a new album out in September. Shakespeare Songs celebrates the four centuries of music and performance that his plays and sonnets have inspired.

Shakespeare’s peerless feeling for the music of the English language has inspired countless composers, from those who set the Bard’s verse during his lifetime to musicians as diverse as Britten, Finzi, Korngold and Stravinsky. Ian Bostridge and Sir Antonio Pappano, together with four outstanding chamber musicians, delve into the rich Shakespeare legacy for this brand new recording, marking the playwright’s quarter-centenary with a delectable programme of works written for Jacobean productions, Restoration revivals and the modern concert hall. As guests Ian has invited his friends the lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, and for Stravinsky’s Three Songs flautist Adam Walker, violist Lawrence Power and clarinetist Michael Collins.

“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.”

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Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring, Op. 18: I. Come Away, Come Away Death
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Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring, Op. 18: II. Who is Silvia?
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Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring, Op. 18: III. Fear No more the Heat o' the Sun
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Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring, Op. 18: IV. O Mistress Mine
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Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring, Op. 18: V. It Was a Lover and his Lass
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Byrd: Caleno Custore Me
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Morley: It Was a Lover and His Lass
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Wilson: Take O Take Those Lips Away
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Morley: O Mistress Mine
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Johnson: Where the Bee Sucks
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Johnson: Full Fathom Five
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Schubert: An Silvia, D. 891
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Haydn: She Never Told Her Love, Hob. XXVIa No. 34
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Quilter: 3 Shakespeare Songs, Op. 6: I. Come Away, Death
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Gurney: 5 Elizabethan Songs (The Elizas): III. Under the Greenwood Tree
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Warlock: Pretty Ring Time
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Warlock: Sweet and Twenty
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Korngold: 4 Shakespeare Songs, Op. 31: I. Desdemona's Song
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Korngold: Songs of the Clown, Op. 29: I. Come Away Death
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Korngold: Songs of the Clown, Op. 29: II. Adieu, Good Man Devil
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Poulenc: Fancie, FP 174
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Britten: Fancie - 'Tell Me Where is Fancy Bred'
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Tippett: Songs for Ariel: I. Come Unto These Yellow Sands
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Tippett: Songs for Ariel: II. Full Fathom five
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Tippett: Songs for Ariel: III. Where the Bee Sucks
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Stravinsky: 3 Songs from William Shakespeare: I. Musick to Hear
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Stravinsky: 3 Songs from William Shakespeare: II. Full Fadom Five
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Stravinsky: 3 Songs from William Shakespeare: III. Spring (When Daisies Pied)
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Anon: When that I Was but a Little Tiny Boy

Europadisc Review

The quatercentenary of William Shakespeare’s death has prompted record companies to a vast range of releases, everything from the complete works on CD and performances of the plays on DVD to Shakespearean operas and themed recitals. Among the latter, there has been music from the Bard’s own time, as well as later settings of his texts. Warner’s newest release is an imaginative and beautifully presented collection of ‘Shakespeare Songs’ from tenor Ian Bostridge, ranging from the Elizabethan to the twentieth century. Bostridge’s main collaborator here is Antonio Pappano, putting in yet another of his welcome turns as piano accompanist, and it’s clearly a meeting of minds, with performances that are deeply considered while still sounding admirably fresh.

Ian Bostridge’s voice has sometimes divided opinion, but this must count as one of his most successful recital discs yet. The repertoire is well chosen throughout, and his tone is perfectly matched to the repertoire, both early and late. Several famous song texts from Shakespeare’s plays reappear in multiple settings, vividly demonstrating the sheer range of styles and possibilities, including ‘Come away, death’, ‘Who is Silvia’, ‘O mistress mine’ and ‘It was a lover and his lass’. All four of these are present in Finzi’s five-song cycle Let Us Garlands Bring, which acts here as an ideal curtain-raiser, both Bostridge and Pappano proving models of sensitivity. A selection of Elizabethan and Jacobean settings follows, with Bostridge partnered by star lutenist, the ever-idiomatic Elizabeth Kenny: from Byrd and Morley to John Wilson, this is a lovely group of numbers, ranging from the delicate sprightliness to the subtle intensity (Wilson’s ‘Take, o take those lips away’).

Before moving on to more recent fare, Pappano rejoins Bostridge for two classical settings: Schubert’s ‘An Silvia’ (sung in English) and Haydn’s exquisite ‘She never told her love’, both marvellously poised. Then it’s firmly back to British shores for a selection of four songs by Roger Quilter, Ivor Gurney and Peter Warlock, with Quilter's limpid setting of ‘Come away, death’ particularly affecting. Three Korngold settings include another setting of that same text, the first of his Songs of the Clown, op.29, a strikingly Mahlerian creation that lingers long in the memory.

The ‘Fancie’ from Act 3 of The Merchant of Venice is presented side-by-side in two contrasting settings from Poulenc and Britten, the first long-breathed and lyrical, the second animated and excitable. And then, two twentieth-century masterpieces, Michael Tippett’s three Songs for Ariel – wonderfully atmospheric, the piano accompaniments delivered with a truly orchestral feeling for colour – and Stravinsky’s extraordinary Three Songs from William Shakespeare, with a starry line-up of flautist Adam Walker, clarinettist Michael Collins and violist Lawrence Power providing the ‘accompaniments’ (if one can call them that: so integral are they to the musical whole). It’s surely worth the price of the disc for the Tippett and Stravinsky alone.

How to cap all that? With the anonymous, traditional, unaccompanied version of ‘When that I was and a little tiny boy’ from Twelfth Night. It’s a magical way to end a recital of exceptional attractiveness and diversity. And it’s all enhanced still further by a fine recording and sumptuous presentation: a three-language, colourful hardback booklet with complete texts, and a magnificently erudite and detailed article by Shakespeare scholar Christopher R Wilson. Even among the plethora of issues to appear this anniversary year, this one stands tall: treat yourself!

Reviews

This is worth having for the first track alone: an impeccable account of Finzi’s Come Away, Death, with Ian Bostridge blending melancholy and nonchalance, Antonio Pappano accompanying with tender reticence. Bostridge, who names Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ades’s The Tempest as milestones, squeezes every nuance of meaning from these Shakespeare settings. The recital is well constructed: Elizabethan lute songs (with the incomparable Elizabeth Kenny) lead to Schubert’s An Silvia (sung in English) and on to Quilter, Gurney and Warlock. Fiona Maddocks

The Observer 28 August 2016

As anniversary tributes go, this is a good one. With the help of lutenist Elizabeth Kenny and a starry roster of solo instrumentalists, Bostridge roams not only over four centuries of repertoire (from Byrd and Morley to Tippett) but also right across the music map, exploring responses to Shakespeare by Haydn, Schubert, Korngold, Poulenc and Stravinsky as well as home-grown composers. Alexandra Coghlan

Gramophone October 2016

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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Shakespeare Songs

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Europadisc Review

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£17.43

£128.75

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