Shakespeare Songs for baritone voice, oboe, and piano (1985)
texts by William Shakespeare
i Be not afeard (The Tempest, Act III, scene ii)
ii How oft when thou, my music, music play'st (Sonnet 128)
iii When I do count the clock that tells the time (Sonnet 12)
iv Blow, winds (King Lear, Act III, scene ii)
v My mistress' eyes (Sonnet 130)
15 minutes
I wrote this set for my colleagues at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, bass-baritone Larry Vote and clarinetist John Laughton. The piece is one of the earliest in which I intentionally juxtapose divergent musical languages—commonplace today, but in view of the modernist bent of my training, it seemed daring at the time. The first song draws its text from a short speech of Caliban in The Tempest. The second, Sonnet 128, recounts the poet’s jealousy as his beloved lavishes more attention on the harpsichord than on him; the accompaniment part is actually “Amarilli di Julia Romani” by Peter Phillips (after Marenzio) from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Sonnet 12 is one of many by Shakespeare that laments the fleeting nature of youthful beauty, and calls for producing offspring as the only way to perpetuate that beauty. “Rage, Winds” is drawn from the portion of King Lear when Lear’s dementia is at its peak. Just as Sonnet 150 parodies the stereotypical comparison of a loved one’s features with assorted beauties of natures, the setting parodies what I think of as Victorian style; the final couplet, however, brings the poem (and the set) to a heartfelt close.
texts by William Shakespeare
i Be not afeard (The Tempest, Act III, scene ii)
ii How oft when thou, my music, music play'st (Sonnet 128)
iii When I do count the clock that tells the time (Sonnet 12)
iv Blow, winds (King Lear, Act III, scene ii)
v My mistress' eyes (Sonnet 130)
15 minutes
I wrote this set for my colleagues at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, bass-baritone Larry Vote and clarinetist John Laughton. The piece is one of the earliest in which I intentionally juxtapose divergent musical languages—commonplace today, but in view of the modernist bent of my training, it seemed daring at the time. The first song draws its text from a short speech of Caliban in The Tempest. The second, Sonnet 128, recounts the poet’s jealousy as his beloved lavishes more attention on the harpsichord than on him; the accompaniment part is actually “Amarilli di Julia Romani” by Peter Phillips (after Marenzio) from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Sonnet 12 is one of many by Shakespeare that laments the fleeting nature of youthful beauty, and calls for producing offspring as the only way to perpetuate that beauty. “Rage, Winds” is drawn from the portion of King Lear when Lear’s dementia is at its peak. Just as Sonnet 150 parodies the stereotypical comparison of a loved one’s features with assorted beauties of natures, the setting parodies what I think of as Victorian style; the final couplet, however, brings the poem (and the set) to a heartfelt close.