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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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Henri Duparc - Short Biography - Invitation to the Voyage

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Henri Duparc  1848-1933 Born in Paris, his full name was Marie-Eugene Henri Fouques-Duparc. On the advice of a publisher, he shortened it to Henri Duparc. As a child he had no particular interest in music and preferred games. While training as a lawyer at the Jesuit College of Vaugirard, César Franck recognised his musical talent and taught him piano and composition. Duparc responded with energy and enthusiasm. At age 19 he wrote his first work a sonata for cello and piano and by 1868 he had written his first five songs. During the Franco-Prussian war he served in the 18 th Battalion of the Mobile Guard. It was during the siege of Paris that he wrote “L’Invitation au Voyage”. In 1871 he married an Irish girl Ellie MacSwiney from County Cork. He was devoted to her and their two sons. He was friends with D’Indy and Liszt and met Wagner at Liszt’s house in Weimar in 1869. Duparc admired Wagner and had seen performances of “Tristan und Isolde” and “Die Walk ü re” in Munich, but ...
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