Some interesting examples of setting Shakespeare to music, both traditional and modern (i.e., jazz). Worth a listen.

  • Shakespeare in Song

    • Shockingly few recorded musical renditions of Shakespeare-inspired works exist. Although references to his texts frequently appear throughout various genres of music, the words themselves are rarely preserved in their entirety for a whole song. Of course, musicals based on Shakespeare’s texts are a common method of adaptation. Consider the popular Broadway hits West Side Story based on Romeo and Juliet or Kiss Me, Kate inspired by The Taming of the Shrew.
    • In 2002, an interesting collaboration surrounding Shakespeare’s sonnets was released entitled When Love Speaks. This CD features 53 different Shakespearean sonnets, many read by outstanding actors such as Joseph Fiennes, Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw, in addition to sonnets set to music by Annie Lenox, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Bryan Ferry, among others. Rufus Wainwright– who was recently tapped to perform musical renditions of the sonnets for a forum at the 2013 Stratford Festival in Toronto–  lends his voice to Sonnet #29 from the album:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.