5th June 2024:

This session was a bit of a reverie on loss, transience, mortality anxiety, and Shakespearean ‘secular spirituality’, prompted by my thoughts on setting Sonnet 60. Taken from a poem by John Keats, the title – Sweet Melodies Unheard – is a reference to the Song Hunt itself (sometimes it’s sweeter imagine lost songs than to listen to surviving ones) and to the fact that almost none of the original music to which Shakespeare’s words were set has survived. We took a look at the Robert Johnson and Thomas Morley melodies that do survive, and explored the process of creating a performance ‘edition’ of Desdemona’s famous ‘Willow Song’ (from Othello), by combining a surviving lute song and a broadside ballad with Shakespeare’s words.

Video

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