FIVE SHAKESPEARE SONGS

FIVE SHAKESPEARE SONGS
5 Songs for Baritone and Piano
on Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Publisher
in manuscript

Availability
planned for publication in 2024 or 2025

Description
FIVE SHAKESPEARE SONGS is a collection of five songs based on some of Shakespeare’s most well-known sonnets. The subject is love and, as the name of the cycle implies, this piece outlines a journey from light and effervescent love through more difficult aspects of love and finally to love that transcends death. This is similar in both subject matter and progression to Hall’s countertenor cycle, “O Mistress Mine,” but both the texts and the baritone voice are deeper and darker in quality than the countertenor piece, bringing a special sense of depth and gravitas to the experience.

Text
1 – SONNET 18 : Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 – SONNET 27 : Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed
3 – SONNET 30 : When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
4 – SONNET 34 : Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
5 – SONNET 65 : Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

Vocal Range
A-flat 2  :  G 4

Duration
32′ 00″

Vocal Tessitura
E 3  :  E 4

Year of Composition
2000

First Performance
April 29, 2001
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Hartford, Connecticut

First Performers
Richard Lalli, baritone
Juliana Hall, piano