"If music be the food of love, play on" we read in Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night. Play on — but what music should we play? No playwright in world literature has inspired more musical settings by important composers over the centuries than Shakespeare. It is clear that music’s role in Shakespeare's plays can hardly be overestimated. His stage directions call not only for song but also for instrumental sennets and tuckets — sonatas and toccatas. In this recording, Hannah Morrison, Marnix De Cat and the Hathor Consort bring to life a wealth of sensual Renaissance sounds from the time of Elizabeth I in pieces that could well have been performed at the Globe Theatre.
Works:
•anon.: Desperada
•anon.: Fortune my Foe
•anon.: O Death Rock me Asleep
•anon.: Willow song
•Holborne: Heigh ho holiday
•Holborne: The night watch
•Holborne: The Sighes
•Johnson, R: Full fathom five
•Morley: It was a lover and his lass
•Morley: Now is the month of maying
•Morley: O mistress mine
•Wilson, John: Take, O take those lips away