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The Songs & The Plays - Kean on Shakespeare

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The Songs & The Plays Listen on Youtube Love’s Labours Lost (1593-94) A revised and polished version of this play was presented for Queen Elizabeth I and her court at Christmas 1598. However the elevated language and subject matter of the drama suggests it was always intended for a sophisticated and highly literate audience. There are two parallel plots – one ‘high’ comedy and one ‘low’ comedy. In the high comedy the King of Navarre and his friends make a pact to ‘fast and study’ and to have no contact with women for three years. No sooner have they agreed than the Princess of Aquitaine and her ladies in waiting arrive to discuss ‘state matters’. Inevitably the King falls in love with the Princess and his friends with the French ladies in waiting. The Gentlemen find loophole in their vows and woo and win women with a dance. The Ladies become aware of their broken vows and treat the noblemen with scorn. In the low comedy the page Moth and the clown Costard ridicule the exaggerated m...
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Michael Head - A Cornucopia of English Music Composition

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  Michael Dewar Head  If you were to list the five most famous English composers of the Twentieth Century, it is unlikely that you would think of Michael Head. Yet at the end of the 1940’s he was officially ranked in the top five alongside such great names as Benjamin Britten and William Walton. Head’s wonderful legacy of over one hundred songs is still known through performances at competitive singing festivals but the songs are now unfortunately neglected on the professional platform. In his lifetime they were performed by famous names such as Kathleen Ferrier and Isobel Baillie, in addition to his own self-accompanied recitals, which were enjoyed by audiences across the world. The composer, singer and pianist, Michael Dewar Head was born in Eastbourne on the 28th of January 1900. His father Frederick was a barrister who wrote the legal column for the Financial Times and books on company law. Frederick’s very relaxed attitude toward finances meant that his family were never ...
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