Shakespired: Sonnets by William Shakespeare
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Maciej Zielinski, Miłosz Bembinow, Peter Lawson, Andrzej Borzym jr, Krzysztof Herdzin, Pawel Lukaszewski, Krzesimir Debski, Tomasz Jakub Opałka, Włodek Pawlik, Dariusz Przybylski
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Warner Classics
Magazine Review Date: 04/2018
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 78
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 9029 57280-5

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Th’ expense of spirit |
Miłosz Bembinow, Composer
Miłosz Bembinow, Composer proMODERN |
Love is too young |
Miłosz Bembinow, Composer
Miłosz Bembinow, Composer proMODERN |
Two loves I have |
Miłosz Bembinow, Composer
Miłosz Bembinow, Composer proMODERN |
Being your slave, what should I do but tend |
Andrzej Borzym jr, Composer
Andrzej Borzym jr, Composer proMODERN |
No longer mourn for me when I am dead |
Andrzej Borzym jr, Composer
Andrzej Borzym jr, Composer proMODERN |
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits |
Andrzej Borzym jr, Composer
Andrzej Borzym jr, Composer proMODERN |
From fairest creatures we desire increase |
Krzesimir Debski, Composer
Krzesimir Debski, Composer proMODERN |
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow |
Krzesimir Debski, Composer
Krzesimir Debski, Composer proMODERN |
If there be nothing new, but that which is |
Krzysztof Herdzin, Composer
Krzysztof Herdzin, Composer proMODERN |
Let those who are in favour with their stars |
Krzysztof Herdzin, Composer
Krzysztof Herdzin, Composer proMODERN |
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? |
Krzysztof Herdzin, Composer
Krzysztof Herdzin, Composer proMODERN |
To me, fair friend |
Peter Lawson, Composer
Peter Lawson, Composer proMODERN |
Like as the waves |
Pawel Lukaszewski, Composer
Pawel Lukaszewski, Composer proMODERN |
Weary with toil |
Pawel Lukaszewski, Composer
Pawel Lukaszewski, Composer proMODERN |
…lips to kiss... |
Tomasz Jakub Opałka, Composer
proMODERN Tomasz Jakub Opałka, Composer |
Full many a glorious morning have I seen |
Włodek Pawlik, Composer
proMODERN Włodek Pawlik, Composer |
A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted |
Dariusz Przybylski, Composer
Dariusz Przybylski, Composer proMODERN |
That Time of Year |
Maciej Zielinski, Composer
Maciej Zielinski, Composer proMODERN |
Author: Alexandra Coghlan
Which makes the uniformity and lack of musical ambition of these new settings of Shakespeare sonnets all the more disappointing. Booklet notes explain little about the genesis of the project but most of the 18 settings (all by Polish composers with the exception of Philip Lawson’s Sonnet 104) stay within a very safe compass, both technically and stylistically. There’s an anonymity to the writing, smudgy with cluster-chords, structured again and again around similar patterns of rhythmic repetition, and by the end you’re left with only a generalised impression of pieces that all bleed and drift into one another.
And then there’s the issue of the Shakespeare itself. There’s a reason certain sonnets have been set again and again and not others; denser and more verbally playful than the speeches or songs, these knotty, often highly conceptual texts don’t lend themselves to easy musical evocation or aural digestion, especially when diction is as occluded as here.
But through the haze some works do stand out. Pawel Łukaszewski’s two settings (Sonnets 27 and 60) retain their composer’s signature melodic richness and harmonic fingerprint, and the folk energy and primal rhythmic thrust of Miosz Bembinow’s Sonnet 129 make a welcome contrast to the many more contemplative responses, of which Krzesimir Dębski’s Sonnet 1 – an enchanting opener with more than a hint of Vaughan Williams’s Shakespeare settings – is easily the pick of the bunch.
If you want to revisit Shakespeare’s sonnets you’d do better to pick up a copy while listening to one of proMODERN’s other, superb recordings.
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