MOR alert

While we're on the subject of music and recommendations, here's a tip:  do not -- do NOT -- be persuaded into buying a CD which is getting some attention at the moment, Shakespeare: The Sonnets, produced under the direction of the very estimable early music enthusiast Robert Hollingworth, who directs the vocal ensemble I Fagiolini, and who was responsible for the revival of the brilliant 40-part Striggio motet I mentioned in an earlier post (Car Park Moments).

Here is the description on Amazon:

Fresh from his success of recording an outsize Renaissance mass for a massive 40 parts that had not been heard for 400 years (and winning a Gramophone Album of the Year Award in the process), Robert Hollingworth, director of vocal ensemble I Fagiolini (also a judge on the UK s Choir of the Year and involved in a number of films) was looking for a new challenge. To a specialist of the Renaissance period, Shakespeare s sonnets are an intriguing challenge: the most romantic and personal poems ever written but rarely set to music. All the lyrics are Shakespeare s own and no additions made, although occasionally lines have been moved around to fit the contemporary song structures. Within this, the meaning is never altered and the emotional content of the sonnets is always sustained. What is amazing is how modern some of Shakespeare s language is: Blind Fool Love , or the blues sonnet No Longer Mourn - or the final track, Love is a Babe . Singers from all over the UK perform on the album, some of whom have performed at the New York Metropolitan, La Scala Milan and just about every stadium and concert hall across the globe. Finding players of these rare and ancient instruments ought to have been incredibly difficult but in fact the UK is the world leader in modern performers on these recreated period instruments, and experts in playing in period style. What proved to be harder was securing their services, as they are constantly flying around the world, giving concerts and making recordings of the music of the time. February 6th seems like the perfect day to launch the project, the day in 1952 that Elizabeth II became queen. Words composed in the time of one Elizabeth, re-imagined in the time of another. The album The Sonnets will be officially released in the UK this year on Shakespeare s birthday, April 23rd.

Sounds interesting, doesn't it?  Well, it bloody well isn't.  Despite the rash of five star reviews it's the most toe-curling example of MOR "crossover" I have heard in recent years, and I heartily recommend you stay well away.  Nice sleeve design, though.

If you are interested in the contemporary interpretation of Elizabethan music -- and who wouldn't be? -- I do recommend the work of the Dowland Project,especially In Darkness Let Me Dwell,  a classic piece of ECM's sombre brilliance, bringing together the Hilliard Ensemble's tenor John Potter and saxophonist John Surman under über-producer Manfred Eicher in a moody examination of Dowland's complex, edgy melodies.  Perfect late night music.*

Hilliard self-portrait

(V&A collection)

* Defined in my case, these days, as "between 23:00 and 23:30 hours".