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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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Joaquin Turina - biographical notes & my translations

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  Joaquin Turina 1882-1949 At the age of 20, Turina left his home in Seville, to study in Paris where he studied composition with D’Indy. However it was his first meeting with Albeniz and Falla that had a profound effect on his life. Albeniz had taken Falla and Turina to a café on the Rue Royale: “There I realised that music should be an art, and not a diversion for the frivolity of women and the dissipation of men. We were three Spaniards gathered together in that corner of Paris and it was our duty to fight bravely for the national music of our country.” In 1914, the war prompted his return to Spain. He performed his piano works and songs at a concert in honour of him and Falla, at the Ateneo de Madrid. He travelled extensively performing his work and wrote theatrical pieces with Gregorio Martínez Sierra, all Andalusian in essence, brilliant, vigorous and lyrical and inspired by Spanish folk music. During the Civil War, Turina was one of the musicians welcomed to the open...
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