The Bard's Words Roll Rhapsodically Off These Tongues
Daniel Ginsberg
Washington Post
Saturday, February 10, 2007; C08
... recital of mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley and baritone Stephan Loges... These thoughtful British singers, accompanied in this Vocal Arts Society concert by the superb pianist Roger Vignoles, featured myriad settings of Shakespearean text, with music as diverse and stylish as the master's words.
Shakespeare could open a channel for composers ... John Fould's "The Seven Ages of Man," which Loges sang with humor and charm, describes the phases of life with colorful lyricism... Selections such as Hubert Parry's "The Willow Song" let Bickley show the pleasing tone and lovely midrange of her voice, while Loges applied his smoky, lithe sound in Geoffrey Bush's "Sigh no more, ladies."
Just before intermission, Bickley turned it up a notch with a brilliantly characterized, gripping account of Joseph Horovitz's "Macbeth," alternately seething, frightening and tender...
Franz Schubert
Who is Sylvia?
Hark, hark, the Lark
Roger Quilter
O Mistress Mine
Sir Hubert Parry
The Willow Song
Quilter
Come away, Death
Peter Warlock
Pretty Ring Time
Franz Joseph Haydn
She never told her love
Thomas Arne
Blow, blow thou winter wind
Come away, come away, Death
Edmund Rubbra
Take, O Take those lips away
Geoffrey Bush
Sigh no more, ladies
Joseph Horovitz
Lady Macbeth: A Scena
John Foulds
The Seven Ages of Man
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Ophelia
The Clown in the Churchyard
Sir Michael Tippett
3 Songs of Ariel
Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Arise!
Frank Bridge
When most I wink
John Dankworth
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day
The Compleat Works