A Shakespeare Celebration

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A Shakespeare Celebration is the companion CD to a Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare birthday concert supervised by Stephen Warbeck, Head of Music of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Featuring 10 exceptionally acclaimed composers from the classical, jazz, film, and theater worlds, some of the pieces are newly recorded from past RSC productions, others specially composed and more loosely inspired. Interspersed on separate tracks are short extracts from the plays performed by Malcolm Storry and Harriet Walter. Warbeck features his Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, and a setting that captures the 'strange beauty' of 'The Death of Ophelia,' to which Mark-Anthony Turnage adds an unsettling 'Ophelia's Lament.' Similarly bleak is Django Bates's 'A Glooming Peace,' commemorating Romeo and Juliet. Shaun Davey wrote a fine score for the film of Twelfth Night, and here offers the sad beauty of 'Winter's End.' Also inspired by A Winter's Tale, but incorporating sampling and contemporary music techniques, is 'Lullaby Exit Bear!' by Huw Warren. Other tracks range from Broadway melodies and Jason Carr's 'Poem Unlimited' to the colorful exuberance of Anne (The Full Monty) Dudley's 'Strange Capers.' As in Shakespeare's plays, here is the whole of life's rich pageant, making a rewarding if unavoidably fragmented celebration. --Gary S. Dalkin