To sleep, Perchance to dream…
Ha! Not much chance of that on a Thursday morning, not when I have to be on the air at 6:00.
Every Thursday morning in April, we’ll honor the Bard, as we mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. We’ll hear overtures, incidental music, symphonic poems, art songs, choral works, and operatic highlights inspired by the plays and sonnets. Some of the pieces may be familiar, or marginally so; others have been criminally underplayed.
Tune in over the coming weeks to enjoy works like Constant Lambert’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Gerald Finzi’s “Love’s Labours Lost,” Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare;” Paul Moravec’s “Tempest Fantasy,” Florent Schmitt’s “Antony and Cleopatra;” Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Cymbeline,” and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ beloved “Serenade to Music,” set to a text from “The Merchant of Venice.”
All the world’s a stage, this morning and over the next three Thursdays, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Brush up your Shakespeare, on Classic Ross Amico.
#Shakespeare400
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
– “The Merchant of Venice,” Act 5, scene 1
