SHAKESPEARE SONGS (for tenor and string quartet) op.378 (July 1987) Listen to this Work

Commissioned by: Chester Festival
Note on Lyrics: Text: William Shakespeare
Duration: 25 mins
First Performance: Martyn Hill/Medici Quartet/ Chester Festival. July 21st 1987
Full score for sale
Study score for sale
Instrumental parts for sale
A piano score is available in a lower key see op.414
CD Martyn Hill 2006 Meridian

Movements

• 1: THE COUNTRY
  Under the greenwood tree
  
• 2: THE WIND
  Blow,blow thou winter wind
  
• 3: THE SEA
  Full fathom five
  
• 4: SPRING
  It was a lover and his lass
  
• 5: WINTER
  When icicles hand by the wall
  
• 6: WEDDING HYMN
  Hymn to Hymen
  
• 7: LAMENT
  Come away, death
  
• 8: CLOWN'S SONG
  When that I was but a little tiny boy
  
• 9: DIRGE FOR FIDELE
  Fear no more the heat o' the sun
  

Notes

Some of the songs started life on the stage in simple versions composed for the RSC's 1985 production of 'As you like it'. Howard re-worked them into concert pieces for voice and string quartet.

Performances

27th November 2006	University of Nebraska, Kearney, NE USA
31st October 2005 - 1st November 2005	Martyn Hill, English Serenata, St Lawrence's Parish Church, Mickleton, Gloucestershire First recording for Meridian by Richard Hughes,produced by Susanne Stanzeleit
19th November 2003	Patricia Rozario, Schubert Ensemble, Wigmore Hall
6th April 1989	Ian Partridge, Coull Quartet, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
3rd March 1988	Martyn Hill, Coull Quartet, Recording for BBC Radio 3, Birmingham
21st July 1987	Martyn Hill / Medici Quartet, Chester Festival

Reviews

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'Of the various works especially commissioned by the Chester Summer Music Festival this year's Shakespeare song cycle would musically and artistically speaking seem to be the best....Blake has achieved true sensitivity, originality and innate musicianship with all the technical skills of modern song-writing to breathe fresh life into familiar stanzas. The songs are crafted with much perception. Devices such as suddenly-soaring intervals to give emphasis, sense of movement with changing time-signatures, and the manner in which lines are phrased to make literate as well as refined musical sense are some of the ways that help underline the significance of the texts...the composer acknowledged the prolonged ovation that was given the first performance.'

Chester Standard, 31/7/1987

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'...a big success in the Festival..a work which received a stamping ovation...Blake's appreciation and comprehension of the poems was expressed precisely, passionately and descriptively...music utterly fitting to each mood, modern in sound, classical in impact.'

Chester Chronicle, 24/7/1987

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'...the odd faint passing hint of Britten in some of the textures, and the more obvious debt of Stravinskian neo-classicism in the recurring motif of trills in the string accompaniments, the Shakespeare Songs hark back to Peter Warlock in their blend of rhythmic regularity spiced with the occasional irregularity and almost embarassingly direct tunefulness...the audience was duly enthusiastic.'

Paul Dewhirst, Daily Telegraph, 23/7/1987

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Rarely does one witness so warm and prolonged a reception for the premiere of a new composition as greeted Howard Blake's Shakespeare Songs...the English folk song tradition permeates every nook and cranny. Britten (in his Serenade style) seems to have been a particularly strong influence but the writing is at once highly skilled and conceptually fresh

Chester Post, 22/7/1987

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