British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was a great lover of William Shakespeare. Thus, his oeuvre includes several settings of Shakespeare's poems and plays, including the masterful
Three Shakespeare Songs (1951) and the opera
Sir John in Love (1928), based on The Merry Wives of Windsor. What makes this album by the Kent Sinfonia and conductor James Ross special is that it contains largely unknown
… orchestral music that Vaughan Williams composed for various Shakespeare productions, ranging from stage to film scores. Often this is music of which only fragments have survived or which lived on in another form. Composer Malcolm Riley, for example, reconstructed the orchestral version of the Overture to Henry V, previously known only in Vaughan Williams version for brass. He also composed a suite from the music belonging to Shakespeare's Henry IV. Based on music never performed for the BBC radio production Richard II, mostly short individual excerpts, Nathaniel Lew composed a compelling concert fantasy. So an album full of unknown gems, which may well be one of the last gold mines of unperformed music by Vaughan Williams. (JWvR)more
