Sounds of Shakespeare
Andrew McGregor presents a special live edition from Stratford-upon-Avon. Includes Building a Library: Verdi's Falstaff; Shakespeare on Record: The bard's verse on disc.
with Andrew McGregor, live from the Royal Shakespeare's Company's The Other Place theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of Radio 3's Sounds of Shakespeare weekend.
0900 Building a Library on Verdi's opera Falstaff
Andrew is joined by Verdi expert Roger Parker to discuss the best recordings of Verdi's final opera, Falstaff, in which the giant of Italian opera pays tribute to the giant of world drama in a humane and genial comedy. Verdi admired Shakespeare all his life. He turned Macbeth and Othello into lyric dramas which are great in their own terms. Despite a burning desire to turn King Lear into an opera, that was not to be. But for the final fruit of his Indian summer, Verdi teamed up with the great librettist Arrigo Boito to create a work full of wit, dashing orchestral sonorities and quick-silver melodies. And he forged a musical language which responds the to ebb and flow of the drama in a way comparable to expressive and flexible verse of Shakespeare's greatest masterpieces.
1000 Shakespeare on Record
Andrew is joined by actor Sam West and Shakespeare scholar, Kate Kennedy to discuss the different ways in which Shakespeare's verse has been performed on disc over the years: from Frank Benson, Sybil Thorndike and John Barrymore to Laurence Olivier, Derek Jacobi and David Tennant.
大象传媒 Radio 3 is marking the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare with a season celebrating the four centuries of music and performance that his plays and sonnets have inspired. Over the anniversary weekend, from Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th April, Radio 3 will broadcast live from Stratford-upon-Avon, from a pop-up studio at the Royal Shakespeare Company芒.
Last on
Music Played
-
![]()
Trad
Greensleeves
Conductor: Armonico Consort. Conductor: Christopher Monks. -
![]()
Quilter
Come away death, from Twelfth Night
Performer: Ian Bostridge. Performer: Sir Antonio Pappano. -
![]()
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Romeo and Juliet - Fantasy Overture
Performer: Timothy Byram-Wigfield.
9.00am
Armonico Consort, Christopher Monks
SIGNUM SIGCD447 (CD mid-price)
9.10am - Building a Library
Building a Library Recommendations
Top recommendation:
VERDI: Falstaff
Tito Gobbi (Falstaff), Luigi Alva (Fenton), Rolando Panerai (Ford), Tomaso Spataro (Dr Caius), Renato Ercolani (Bardolfo), Nicola Zaccaria (Pistola), Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Alice Ford), Anna Moffo (Nannetta), Nan Merriman (Meg Page), Fedora Barbieri (Mistress Quickly), Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Herbert von Karajan (conductor)
WARNER 9481992 (2CD mid-price + download)
Below is a shortlist of other recordings which Roger Parker also liked, although we can鈥檛 guarantee the availability of these discs.
VERDI: Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff (Geraint Evans), Mistress Quickly (Giulietta Simionato), Alice Ford (Ilva Ligabue), Ford (Robert Merrill), Nanneta (Mirella Freni), Fenton Alfredo Kraus, Meg Page (Rosalind Elias), Dr Cajus (John Lanigan), Bardolfo (Piero de Palma), Pistola (Giovanni Foiani), RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra, Chorus, Sir Georg Solti (conductor)
DECCA E4756677 (Download)
VERDI: Falstaff
Bryn Terfel (Falstaff), Thomas Hampson (Ford), Adrianne Pieczonka (Alice Ford), Danill Shtoda (Fenton), Dorothea Roschmann (Nannetta), Larissa Diadkova (Mistress Quickly), Stella Doufexis (Meg Page), Anthony Mee (Bardolfo), Enrico Facini (Dr Cajus), Anatoly Kotcherga (Pistola), Berliner Philharmoniker, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Claudio Abbado (conductor)
DG 4711942 (2CD)
VERDI: Falstaff
Giuseppe Valdengo (Falstaff), Herva Nelli (Mistress Alice Ford), Nan Merriman (Mistress Meg Page), Cloe Elmo (Mistress Quickly), Frank Guarrera (Ford), Teresa Stich-Randall (Nannetta), Antonio Madasi (Fenton), Gabor Carelli (Dr Caius), John Carmen Rossi (Bardolph), Norman Scott (Pistol), Robert Shaw Chorale, NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini (conductor)
(recorded 1950)
RCA 74321723722 (2-CD, mid-price)
VERDI: Falstaff
Michele Pertusi (Falstaff), Carlos Alvarez (Ford), Bulent Bezduz (Fenton), Alasdair Elliott (Dr. Cajus), Peter Hoare (Bardolfo), Darren Jeffrey (Pistola), Ana Ibarra (Alice Ford), Maria Jose Moreno (Nannetta), Jane Henschel (Mistress Quickly), Marina Domashenko (Meg Page), London Symphony Orchestra, Chorus, Sir Colin Davis (conductor)
LSO LIVE LSO0055 (Download)
听
10.00am - Shakespeare on Record
Andrew is joined by actor Sam West and Shakespeare scholar, Kate Kennedy to discuss the different ways in which Shakespeare's verse has been performed on disc over the years: from Frank Benson, Sybil Thorndike and John Barrymore to Laurence Olivier, Derek Jacobi and David Tennant.
Great Historical Shakespeare Recordings
Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Arthur Bourchier, Lewis Waller, Frank Benson, Johnston Forbes Robertson, John Gielgud, Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson, John Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Henry Irving, Edwin Booth, Ellen Terry, Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Fred Terry, Julia Neilson, Henry Ainley, Bransby Williams, Edith Evans, Charles Laughton, Laurel and Hardy, Sarah Bernhardt, Jean Mounet-Sully, Constant Coquelin, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Moissi
NAXOS AUDIOBOOKS NA220012 (2CD budget)
SHAKESPEARE: The Complete Works
100CD + 1CDROM Box Set
DECCA 47835062
Limited Edition Physical Set
The Essential Shakespeare Live
Including actors: Francesca Annis, Peggy Ashcroft, Simon Russell Beale, Brian Cox, Sinead Cusack, Judi Dench, Ray Fearon, Ciar谩n Hinds, Ian Holm, Alan Howard, Derek Jacobi, Emrys James, Ben Kingsley, Jane Lapotaire, Anton Lesser, Ian McKellen, Laurence Olivier, David Oyelowo, Richard Pasco, Michael Pennington, Jonathan Pryce, Roger Rees, Ian Richardson, Alan Rickman, Paul Robeson, Mark Rylance, Paul Scofield, Antony Sher, Donald Sinden, Robert Stephens, Juliet Stevenson, Patrick Stewart, David Suchet, Janet Suzman, David Tennant, Harriet Walter, David Warner, Michael Williams
OPUS ARTE OACD9042BD (4CD budget)
QUILTER: 鈥楥ome away, Death鈥�
Ian Bostridge (tenor), Antonio Pappano (piano)
WARNER RECORDS (download)
Taken from Shakespeare Songs, to be released as a CD by Warner in September 2016
10.35am
BACH, J S: Aria from Cantata BWV80 'Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott'
HANDEL: Ptolemy: Overture
NICOLAI, C O: Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor overture
SPOHR: Jessonda Overture
TCHAIKOVSKY: Romeo & Juliet - Fantasy Overture
VERDI: La traviata: Prelude to Act 1
WEBER: Oberon Overture
Timothy Byram-Wigfield (organ)
DELPHIAN DCD34143 (CD)
Broadcast
- Sat 23 Apr 2016 09:00大象传媒 Radio 3
Composers A to Z
Visit the extensive Radio 3 audio archive of programmes about composers and their works.
Browse previous episodes of the Record Review Podcast
All episodes since 2010, listed alphabetically by composer surname.
Why the music we love as teens stays with us for life
Cognitive neuropyschology can explain why we return to old favourites again and again.