Shakespeare Songs (2016)

performed by Adam Walker (flute), Antonio Pappano (piano), Elizabeth Kenny (lute), Ian Bostridge (tenor), Lawrence Power (viola), Michael Collins (clarinet)
composed by Anonymous, Benjamin Britten, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Francis Poulenc, Franz Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Gerald Finzi, Igor Stravinsky, Ivor Gurney, John Wilson, Michael Tippett, Peter Warlock, Robert Johnson, Roger Quilter, Thomas Morley, William Byrd

From the cover of this release, you might think that you're getting a release similar to many others involving songs setting texts by Shakespeare, and indeed you are in part. There's a star tenor, Ian Bostridge, and an accompanist who's also a moderate draw, Antonio Pappano, turning in his baton temporarily for a stint at the keyboard. There are familiar settings by English composers of the 20th century, including Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter, and one of these, Finzi's gorgeous Let Us Garlands Bring, should be sampled: ... Read More

From the cover of this release, you might think that you're getting a release similar to many others involving songs setting texts by Shakespeare, and indeed you are in part. There's a star tenor, Ian Bostridge, and an accompanist who's also a moderate draw, Antonio Pappano, turning in his baton temporarily for a stint at the keyboard. There are familiar settings by English composers of the 20th century, including Gerald Finzi and Roger Quilter, and one of these, Finzi's gorgeous Let Us Garlands Bring, should be sampled: you may find that it alone is worth the price of admission. Yet actually the album is something different from what it appears, and Bostridge, sounding clear and light in the higher ranges as ever, deserves credit for stretching the concept. First of all, Pappano is not the only accompanist, although you'd never know this from the graphics. On songs by Thomas Morley and other Renaissance composers (there's an odd texted version of a set of keyboard variations by Byrd, possibly one of... Read Less