If Music Be the Food of Love

  • St Mary the Virgin Church, Henley-on-Thames
  • March 25, 2023
  • Saturday, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

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Thank you Kindly

If Music Be the Food of Love

St Mary the Virgin Church, Hart St, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 2AU

Saturday, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
March 25, 2023

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What a wonderful concert we had last night in Henley, with all kinds of Shakespearean musical vibes. Terrific solo interludes from David Webb, a trio of tenor soloists (Tim, Aled, Jude – amazing!) cool bass playing by Patrick Moore, snazzy jazz piano accompaniment by Trevor Defferd, entertaining chit chat by maestro Louise Rapple Moore… some lovely choral singing and excellent musical direction too. Thank you so much to everyone who came to listen – you were a wonderful audience. Special thanks to Hannah Ratious Wilkins who came all the way from Northampton to support us and took these terrific photos!
Blow blow, thou winter wind –  Thomas Arne
Full fathom five – Charles Wood
Three Shakespeare Songs – Ralph Vaughan Williams
Full fathom five
The cloud capp’d towers
Over hill, over dale
INTERLUDE
Come away, death – Roger Quilter
Baritone: David Webb, piano: Louise Rapple Moore
Two Shakespeare Songs – Matthew Harris
Who is Sylvia? Tenor: Aled Elmore
Tell me, where is fancy bred?
INTERLUDE
Emilia’s monologue from Othello, Act IV scene iii
Joanna Loxton
Three Shakespeare Songs – Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
Come away, death
Lullaby
Double double, toil and trouble
A Summer Sonnet – Kevin Olson
Tenor: Tim Beavan
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INTERVAL
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It was a lover and his lass – Thomas Morley
Song for Athene – John Tavener
INTERLUDE
O mistress mine – Roger Quilter
Baritone: David Webb, piano: Louise Rapple Moore
Songs and Sonnets – George Shearing
Live with me and be my love
When daffodils begin to peer
It was a lover and his lass
Spring
Who is Sylvia?
Fie on sinful fantasy
Hey ho, the wind and the rain
Bass guitar: Patrick Moore
INTERLUDE
Sonnets 116 and 130
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun
Andrew Grigg and Louise Rapple Moore
Sigh no more, ladies – Roderick Williams
Choral Medley from West Side Story – 
Bernstein/Sondheim arr. Len Thomas
Did you know it’s 425 years since William Shakespeare put quill to scroll and began to craft the lines of his classic romcom Much Ado About Nothing? In a 24-year career as the nation’s flagship bard he wrote at least 38 plays.  We’re paying tribute in our next concert – we’ve tried our best to match his productivity by polishing up a gallimaufry of 22 songs in our ten weeks of rehearsal. Almost all of them use Shakespeare’s dramatic lyrics, from Much Ado to Macbeth to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  You can be sure of a warm welcome at our concert in Henley on Thames and there’s a topical link. Shakespeare was born in a house on Henley Street… in Stratford upon Avon. He’s practically a neighbour. “Let me see thee caper!” we hear you cry. So to the programme. We’ll be performing music written from Elizabethan times to the present day, by the composers Arne, Morley, Wood, Vaughan Williams, Shearing, Harris, Mäntyjärvi, Olson, Williams and Tavener. Our accompanist will be the gamesome Trevor Defferd and our musical director the egregious Louise Rapple Moore. There will also be solo interludes and interval refreshments. As Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night, “Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.” Someone should write a song about that.