Four Shakespeare Songs in Madrigal Style (2009)

for two sopra­nos, unac­com­pa­nied
about 6”00

Pre­miere June 30, 2010 at Mannes Col­lege of Music


I was asked to con­sider writ­ing some­thing for two sopra­nos. As usual, the ques­tion becomes ‚Äúwhat text should I use?‚Äù So I picked up my anthol­ogy of poetry and read­ing some Shake­speare, a melody imme­di­ately popped into my head. This hap­pened con­tin­u­ously for about a week, as I wrote these one after the other. The four songs are: 1) Take, O Take Those Lips Away (2) Tired with all these for rest­ful death I cry (3) If music be the food of love play on (4) Tell me where is fancy bred.

Per­form­ers are encour­aged to alter the order of the pieces, and even may switch parts from song to song.
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