Front cover image for Shakespeare's songbook

Shakespeare's songbook

Publisher's description: A remarkable work that recovers the songs Shakespeare's audiences actually heard and brings them to life through performance. Shakespeare lovers have long lamented that so few songs in his plays survive with original music; of about sixty song lyrics, only a handful have come down to us with musical settings. For over 150 years, scholars have aspired--without success--to fill that gap. In Shakespeare's Songbook, Ross W. Duffin does just that. Eight years in the making, Shakespeare's Songbook is a meticulously researched collection of 160 songs--ballads and narratives, drinking songs, love songs, and rounds--that appear in, are quoted in, or alluded to in Shakespeare's plays. Drawing substantially on the unmatched resources of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Duffin brings complete lyrics (many newly recovered) and music notation together for the first time, and in the process sheds new light on Shakespeare's dramatic art. With performances by leading early-music singers and instrumentalists, the accompanying audio CD brings the songbook to life. Shakespeare's Songbook is the perfect gift for lovers of Shakespeare and an invaluable reference for singers, actors, directors, and scholars. 49 illustrations, 500 music examples
Print Book, English, ©2004
W.W. Norton, New York, ©2004
compact discs
528 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm + 1 audio disc (digital ; 4 3/4 in.)
9780393058895, 0393058891
53971949
The songs
Appendix I: Ground bass melodies
Appendix 2: Shakespearean pronunciation
Source list
Index of titles, first lines, and refrains
Index of names and places
Index of citations
CD contents
On accompanying sound disc: Ellen Hargis, Judith Malafronte, Paul Elliott, William Hite, Custer LaRue and Aaron Sheehan, singers ; Paul O'Dette, lute and cittern.
CD credits: Ross W. Duffin, executive producer; Alan Bise, producer and digital editor; Bruce Egre, audio engineer.