Philippe Sly: The complete "5 Shakespeare songs Op. 23" (Quilter)

5 Shakespeare songs (Op. 23):
I. Fear no more the heat of the sun 00:00
II. Under the greenwood tree 03:09
III. It was a lover and his lass 04:15
IV. Take, o take those lips away 06:42
V. Hey, ho, the wind and the rain 08:13

Quilter, Roger (1877-1953) -composer
Philippe Sly -baritone
Michael McMahon -piano

Playlist: "The art of British song: Elgar, Somervell, Williams, Finzi..": https://www.youtube.com/playlist?action_edit=1&list=PLdM8VSWYvcWG_X-lGBATHMoJTGPlAV1TQ

Score: http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/8/86/IMSLP89683-PMLP183787-FiveShakespeareSongs.pdf

Although the Three Shakespeare Songs, Op. 6, of 1905 were a great success for Roger Quilter, the English composer was not to return to setting the work of Shakespeare for nearly 15 years. Yet after the publication of the songs "Under the Greenwood Tree" and "It was a Lover and his Lass," a duet, in 1919, the composer incorporated them into a second set, the Five Shakespeare Songs, Op. 23, in 1921.
"Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun," from Cymbeline, is a pensive elegy in which the vocal melody inescapably rises and falls. The poem is in four strophes, of which the first three are in parallel form; to an art song composer like Quilter, however, the strophes had to be musically modified. The third and fourth stanzas are not identical, and as the text becomes impassioned, the melody becomes more chromatic.
The second song, "Under the Greenwood Tree," from As You Like It, is a light and cheerful air, in barely modified strophic form. "It was a Lover and his Lass," also from As You Like It, follows in much the same vein, though arranged from its original setting as a duet. Like many of Quilter's others songs, the accompaniment is varied and florid, building to a majestic final verse.
The tempo then slows for the expressive fourth song "Take, O Take Those Lips Away," from Measure for Measure. Using a favorite text for composers, this song has a carefully crafted melody and accompaniment that reveal Quilter at his most profoundly concise: the piece is only 21 measures long. The composer was later to set it for piano quartet.
"Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain," the song which concludes Twelfth Night, brings this cycle to a close as well. The composer compacts this multi-strophe song by omitting a verse and setting the text in markedly quick tempo. As in seemingly every Quilter cycle, the high note and dramatic climax come in the final cadence.
This second set marks a departure for Quilter in that he was willing to wrestle with longer song texts, although he was not reluctant to omit verses and did so several times. Not as tightly unified a cycle as the first set, the Five Shakespeare Songs of Op. 23 show that in 1921 Quilter's musical language had remained much the same as that of Op. 6, and had begun to sound more and more like a retrenchment against the more daring styles of contemporary English song composers such as Finzi and Warlock.

Source: http://www.allmusic.com/composition/shakespeare-songs-5-for-voice-and-piano-op-23-mc0002410810

Buy the CD here: http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Minstrels-Philippe-Sly/dp/B00JHBGEQ2

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