Sonnets to Music, Part II

Well, I found this one called  Shakespeare in Songon Amazon and it looks to be exactly what I was looking for!  One person, “folk style”, singing 14 tunes, 8 of which are sonnets.  The reviews at Amazon are almost all excellent.    Almost everything else I found even close was orchestral music, which is not what I want. I’ve got it on my Christmas list :).  It’s going to be very hard not to just buy the silly thing, but I just bought When Love Speaks, and it’s a rule in my house not to go crazy buying yourself presents when Christmas is right around the corner. Anybody have this, or heard of it?  Is it as good as I’m getting myself worked up for? Know what I’m questing after?  I realized something this morning that sums it up for me nicely.  When I see Shakespeare’s words in print, I want to hear music in my head.  That’s really it.  Sonnet 18 for me will now forever come with a tune.  I realized this when I came into the office and saw the text of Sonnet 29 pinned to my wall, and as I read, I could hear Rufus Wainright singing it in my head.  I pinned it there myself, in my eye line, because that song is in my playlist at work and when it comes around I want to map the sound to the words and fully understand what I’m hearing.  I never fully appreciate the “misheard lyric syndrome” until trying to decipher a Shakespearean sonnet without first seeing it in print :). And for the curious, I won’t rule out the possibility that I can sing this one to my kids as well.  Although it’s a much harder tune to pull off.

4 thoughts on “Sonnets to Music, Part II

  1. Sorry about that Jeff! I dropped in an Amazon graphic and I didn’t stop to think that some folks might not see that. Story updated with text link added. It’s called “Shakespeare in Song : Songs and Sonnets Celebrating the Bard”.

  2. Funny, I can’t imagine putting The Sonnets to music. As a matter of fact, to me The Sonnets are music (like the rest of Shakespeare’s verse). This is the beauty of iambic pentameter that so often gets ruined in modern stagings (and mawkish readings of sonnets). Sorry, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

  3. Don’t knock it til you’ve heard it, Catkins. Hunt down David Gilmour doing Sonnet 18, I think that’s still my favorite.

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