Mark Padmore (tenor) with Elizabeth Kenny (lute) 

Elizabethan songwriters were attracted to the expressive possibilities of the sonnet form. This recital features sonnets by Samuel Danyel and Sir Phillip Sidney, but until now, there has been a musical void where Shakespeare’s sonnets might live.  Ross Duffin, scholar and author of Shakespeare’s Songbook has recently completed a project matching some of the best-loved sonnets to pre-existing tunes from the lute-song repertory.  Mark Padmore and Elizabeth Kenny will perform some of these for the very first time; they place them alongside songs by John Danyel, Thomas Morley and John Dowland, and their twentieth-century descendants, Benjamin Britten and Alex Roth.

PROGRAMME
Samuel Danyel/John Danyel (1564-1626) – Like as the Lute
John Danyel  – Time, cruel time
Shakespeare/John Dowland (1563-1626) – Sonnet 7: Lo, in the Orient
Shakespeare/Dowland – Sonnet 61: Is it thy will
Robert Johnson (c.1583-1633) – Galliard
Philip Sidney/John Dowland – O sweet woods
Shakespeare/Dowland – Sonnet 43: When most I winke
Shakespeare/Dowland – Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with Fortune
John Danyel – Rosa (lute solo)
Danyel – Grief, keep within                                                      

INTERVAL

Shakespeare (As you Like It)/Thomas Morley (1557-1602) – It was a lover and his lass
Shakespeare/Robert Jones  – Sonnet 130: My mistress’ Eyes are nothing like the sun
Morley – Love wing’d my Hopes
Dowland/Robert Devereux – Can she excuse my wrongs?
Fantasie All in a Garden Green (lute solo)
Dowland – Now I now I needs must part
Dowland – To ask for all thy love
Alec Roth – Autumnal
Dowland – If my complaints could passions move
Benjamin Britten (1913-76) – Second Lute Song from Gloriana (1953)