Three Shakespeare Songs

By Ralph Vaughan Williams

I bought this edition for my choir to sing as I sang this some years ago from the same edition and enjoyed it immensely at the time. This is an extremely clear edition of a work that is both satisfying for the intellect and the emotions. Found this edition very...

clearly spaced and easy to read. This is important as the setting is fairly dense with multiple splits within each voice part, but still highly legible. I note that this score is rated at intermediate difficulty level by some reviewers. I would have said this is at the upper-end of intermediate, if not 'hard' when we're talking about younger developing musicians. However, each piece is reasonably short and the 3 pieces provide a beautifully balanced edition to any programme. This work fits particularly well with a programme including composers of Britten, Vaughn Williams, Peter Warlock and Roger Quilter's style and vintage.

These are three wonderful pieces each highlighting different musical skills, not unlike Britten's Five Flower Songs, particularly the chromatic tuning in the second and the pointilism of the third. There is, however, a horrible page turn in the third requiring complete memorization of the text.