For more than four centuries, the words of William Shakespeare have inspired composers across cultures, eras, and musical styles. His unparalleled command of language – by turns witty, sensual, playful, anguished, and transcendent – offers an expressive depth that seems tailor-made for music. Shakespeare in Love explores this enduring relationship between text and sound through choral works spanning more than a century, from Ralph Vaughan Williams to contemporary composers, unified by Shakespeare’s meditations on love.

Love, in Shakespeare’s world, is never simple. It is idealized and ironic, passionate and painful, tender and volatile. The selections in our program draw from both his plays and sonnets, illuminating love in its many guises: romantic devotion, longing, joy, loss, and reflection. Though the musical languages of these composers differ widely, Shakespeare’s words provide a timeless thread that binds the program together. Throughout the program, selected Shakespeare sonnets are spoken by members of Kaleidoscope, allowing the poetry to be heard in its original, unaccompanied form.

While every other text in the program comes directly from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, the concert opens with a thoughtful exception – one that frames the entire program by celebrating music itself as an expression of love. While the title, If Music Be the Food of Love, does indeed come from Duke Orsino’s famous opening line in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the poem itself is by Henry Heveningham, a seventeenth-century poet who echoes Shakespeare’s sentiment that music and love are deeply entwined. David C. Dickau’s setting is luminous and expansive, unfolding with a sense of wonder and generosity. As an opening work, it invites both singers and listeners into a space where music becomes an act of devotion – preparing us for Shakespeare’s world of emotional richness and poetic beauty.  

The text of O Mistress Mine, the third of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Three Elizabethan Part Songs, is drawn from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and offers a gentle invitation to love that balances urgency with wistful reflection. Vaughan Williams’s setting captures the text’s intimate, conversational quality through warm harmonies and flowing, folk-like melodic lines. Though composed in the early twentieth century, the music evokes the spirit of Elizabethan song, reflecting Vaughan Williams’s deep interest in English musical heritage. Love here is tender and persuasive, tinged with the awareness that time is fleeting and opportunity must be seized.

Serenade to Music stands as one of the most cherished choral works of the twentieth century and represents a profound union of poetry, music, and human connection. Vaughan Williams selected a passage from The Merchant of Venice in which Lorenzo speaks of the harmony of the cosmos – how the movements of the stars create a music beyond human hearing, and how those who are unmoved by music are incapable of true feeling. The text is both philosophical and deeply lyrical, contemplating music as a moral and spiritual force.

Composed in 1938, the work was written as a personal tribute to the conductor Sir Henry Wood and the singers with whom Vaughan Williams had collaborated throughout his career. Originally conceived for sixteen individual vocal soloists, the piece embodies a sense of intimate conversation and communal expression, with melodic lines that seem to rise organically from the text. Even in choral form, the music retains this conversational quality, allowing the words to unfold naturally within a glowing harmonic landscape.

Vaughan Williams’s score is marked by long, arching phrases, gentle rhythmic flow, and radiant harmonic warmth. Rather than dramatic contrast, the piece unfolds with an almost timeless serenity, inviting listeners into a space of contemplation. Love, as presented here, is elevated and universal – bound not only to human relationships but to beauty, order, and the very fabric of the universe. As a centerpiece of the program, Serenade to Music offers a moment of stillness and reverence, reminding us of music’s power to reflect the deepest truths of the human spirit. Our performance features vocal soloists from the ensemble, violinist Holly Mulcahy and pianist Allen Baston.

George Shearing’s Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare offers a strikingly different, yet equally compelling, perspective on Shakespeare’s texts. Best known as an influential jazz pianist and bandleader, Shearing brings a rhythmic vitality and harmonic color that refreshes Shakespeare’s language without sacrificing its integrity. The result is a set of seven pieces that feel both sophisticated and immediately engaging.

The collection draws from Shakespeare’s sonnets as well as texts from his plays, presenting a wide emotional range – from playful flirtation and irony to tenderness and introspection. Shearing’s musical language blends classical choral textures with jazz-influenced harmonies, syncopation, and an underlying sense of swing. These elements lend the music a buoyant energy and conversational ease, allowing the text to feel alive and contemporary.

Despite their stylistic freshness, Shearing’s settings are deeply respectful of Shakespeare’s words. The clarity of the text remains paramount, with melodic shapes and rhythmic patterns carefully crafted to enhance the natural inflection of the poetry. Moments of humor and lightness are balanced by passages of lyrical warmth, reflecting Shakespeare’s ability to capture both the joys and complexities of love.

Swedish composer and jazz pianist Nils Lindberg offers a tender, lyrical setting of one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets in Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? The music gently unfolds with warmth and restraint, mirroring the poem’s meditation on beauty, time, and the promise of love preserved through art. Lindberg’s setting underscores the universality of Shakespeare’s language and its continued resonance across cultures and generations.

Emma Lou Diemer’s Three Madrigals look back to the Renaissance tradition of text-driven choral writing while employing a modern harmonic palette. Madrigals were, in Shakespeare’s own time, a popular musical form closely associated with poetic expression and themes of love. Diemer’s settings capture the vivid imagery and emotional contrasts of Shakespeare’s texts, using clarity of texture and expressive nuance to bring the words vividly to life.

John Rutter’s It Was a Lover and His Lass is a buoyant setting of Shakespeare’s pastoral text from As You Like It and celebrates youthful love in full bloom. Rutter’s music sparkles with rhythmic vitality and clear, dance-like textures, mirroring the poem’s joyful imagery of springtime, birdsong, and carefree affection. Though modeled after the madrigal tradition, the piece is unmistakably modern in its harmonic language and playful energy. Love, in this setting, is exuberant, communal, and delightfully uncomplicated.

In contrast to the brightness of It Was a Lover and His Lass, When Daisies Pied, from Love’s Labour’s Lost, offers a more atmospheric portrait of the changing seasons. Rutter’s setting paints the text with crisp articulation and vivid word-painting, capturing both the chill of winter and the rustic pleasures that accompany it. While the poem is less overtly romantic, its affectionate depiction of everyday life and shared experience suggests a quieter, more grounded form of love – rooted in familiarity, tradition, and the rhythms of nature.

The program concludes with a contemporary response to Shakespeare’s texts. David C. Dickau’s Three from Shakespeare is marked by rich harmonies, expressive dissonance, and a deep sensitivity to language. These settings explore love’s complexity and emotional depth, offering moments of introspection and intensity. Ending the program here brings Shakespeare’s words fully into the present, affirming their continued power to inspire new musical voices. Ultimately, Shakespeare in Love affirms that while musical styles evolve, Shakespeare’s insights into love – and the human heart – remain timeless.

Michael O’Neal