A Lover’s GiftfromHim to Her From Twelfth NightWilliam Shakespeare (1564-1616) Act I Scene IIf music be the food of love, play on,Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die.That strain again, it had a dying fall:O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet soundThat breathes upon a bank of violets,Stealing and giving odor. Enough, no more;‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,That notwithstanding thy capacityReceiveth as the sea, nought enters there,Of what validity and pitch soe’er,But falls into abatement and low price,Even in a minute! So full of shapes is fancy,That it alone is high fantastical.’ Music: ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from Rinaldo, Handel Takako Nishizaki/Polish National Radio SO/Breiner 8.223586 From Romeo and JulietWilliam Shakespeare Act II Scene II‘But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!… ...It is my lady, O, it is my love.O that she knew she were!’ Music: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, TchaikovskyRPO/Leaper 8.553017 From The SonnetsWilliam Shakespeare (1564-1616) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate;Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm’d:And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d.But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shadeWhen in eternal lines to time thou growest.So long as men can breathe, or eyes can seeSo long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Music: Meditation from Thais, Massenet Takako Nishizaki/Jenö Jandö 8.550306 The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships from Doctor FaustusChristopher Marlowe (1564-1593) ‘Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss:Her lips suck forth my soul, see where it flies:And all is dross that is not Helena.’ Music: Sarabande from Lady Radnor’s Suite, Parry Capella Istropolitana/Leaper 8.550331 The Passionate Shepherd to His Love from Doctor FaustusChristopher Marlowe (1564-1593) Come live with me and be my loveAnd we will all the pleasures proveThat hills and valleys, dales and fields,Or woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks,And see the shepherds feed their flocksBy shallow rivers, to whose fallsMelodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of rosesAnd a thousand fragrant poises;A cap of flowers, and a kirtleEmbroider’d all with leaves of myrtle. A gown made of the finest woolWhich from our pretty lambs we pull;Fair-lined slippers for the cold,With buckles of the purest gold. Music: Ich liebe Dich from Zärtliche Liebe, BeethovenTakako Nishizaki/Polish National Radio SO/Breiner 8.223586 Red, Red RoseRobert Burns (1759-1796) O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,That’s newly sprung in June;O my Luve’s like the melodieThat’s sweetly play’d in tune. As fair art thou, my bonie lass,So deep in luve am I;And I will luve thee still, my DearTill a’ the seas gang dry.Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:I will luve thee still, my Dear,While the sands o’ life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only Luve!And fare thee weel, a while!And I will come again, my LuveTho’ it were ten thousand mile! Music: Air from An English Suite, ParryCapella Istropolitana/Leaper 8.550331 The Rigs O’ BarleyRobert Burns (1759-1796) ‘I lock’d her in my fond embrace;Her heart was beating rarely!My blessings on that happy placeAmang the rigs o’ barley.’ Music: Ich Liebe Dich from Hjertets melodier Op 5, GriegTakako Nishizaki/Polish National Radio SO/Breiner 8.223586 Music: Che gelida manina from La Bohème, PucciniJonathan Welch/Czecho-Slovak Radio SO/Humburg 8.660003-04 From David CopperfieldCharles Dickens (1812-1870) ‘I don’t think I had any definite idea where Dora came from,or in what degree she was related to a higher order of being, but I am quitesure I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any otherlady, with indignation and contempt.’ From PersuasionJane Austen (1775-1817) After years of undeclared love, Frederick Wentworth finallyexpresses his feelings in a letter to Anne Elliot. ‘I have lovednone but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but neverinconstant. For you alone I think and plan.’ Music: Larghetto, Serenade for Strings Op 20, ElgarCapella Istropolitana/Leaper 8.550331 From Jane EyreCharlotte Brontë (1816-1855) ‘I have for the first time found what I can truly love - Ihave found you’ Music: Allegretto, Serenade for Strings, Op. 20, Elgar.Capella Istropolitana/Leaper 8.550331 From Far from the Madding CrowdThomas Hardy (1840-1928) ‘Such women as you a hundred men always covet’ Music: Mondnacht from Liederkreis Op.39, SchumannNishizaki/Polish National Radio SO/Breiner 8.223586 Perfect WomanWilliam Wordsworth (1770-1850) ‘She was a phantom of delightWhen first she gleam’d upon my sight;A lovely apparition, sentTo be a moment’s ornament.’ LoveSamuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) ‘The moonshine, stealing o’er the scene,Had blended with the lights of eve;And she was there, my hope, my joy,My own dear Genevieve!’ Music: Clair de lune from Suite Bergamasque, Debussy CSRSO(Bratislava)/Lenard/Clark 8.550088 Music: E lucevan le stelle’ from Tosca, PucciniGiorgio Lamberti/Czecho-Slovak Radio SO/Rahbari 8.660001-2 He Wishes for the Cloths of HeavenWilliam Butler Yeats (1865-1939) Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf night and light and the half-light,I would spread the cloths under your feet:But I, being poor, have only my dreams;I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. Summer NightLord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:The firefly wakens: waken thou with me. Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the earth all Danae to the stars,And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leavesA shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And slips into the blossom of the lake:So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and sipInto my bosom and be lost in me. Music: Sonntag from Five Songs Op. 47, BrahmsTakako Nishizaki/Polish National Radio SO/Breiner 8.223586 From ConfessionsJean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1777) Volatile, passionate and intense, Rousseau presaged, in hiswritings, the Romantic Age.‘Friendship, confidence, intimacy, sympathy of soul - whatrelish do such things give!’ Music: Berceuse Op. 16, FauréCSRSC/Lenard/Clark 8.550088 Letter from Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) to Josephine ‘…As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to donothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the aim ofmy life.’ Letters from Karl Marx (1818-1883) to his wife, JennyA very human face to the political revolutionary. ‘There are actually many females in the world, and someamong them are beautiful. But where could I find again a face, whose everyfeature, even every wrinkle, is a reminder of the greatest and sweetestmemories of my life? Even my endless pains, my irreplaceable losses I read inyour sweet face.’‘You have only to be snatched away from me even in a meredream, and I know immediately that the moment you are absent, my love for youshows itself to be what it is, a giant, in which are crowded together all theenergy of my spirit and all the character of my heart.’ My Heart’s Friend, Shoshone Love SongFair is the white star of twilight,And the sky clearerAt the day’s end;But she is fairer, and she is dearer,She, my heart’s friend! Fair is the white star of twilight,And the moon rovingTo the sky’s end;But she is fairer, better worth loving,She, my heart’s friend. Music: Adagio, Piano Concerto in A minor Op.16, GriegJandó/Budapest SO/Ligeti 8.550118 Letter from Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) to Louise Colet ‘I have never felt for any woman so deep a devotion, soirresistible an attraction; never has there been such complete communion.’ Music: Sicilienne from Pelléas et Mélisande, FauréCSRSO/Lenard 8.550088 FidelityD.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) Fidelity and love are two different things,like a flower and a gem.And love, like a flower, will fade, will change into some-thing else or it would notbe flowery… …But a gem is different. It lasts so muchlonger than we doso much much much longerthat it seems to last forever. Letter from Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) to Katherine Cox ‘But once in love with you, one has, I find-since you areuniquely you - to go further and further, at least if one’s me.’ Music: Adagio Sostenuto, Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 18, Rachmaninov 8.550117 Jandó/Budapest SO/Lehel Music: ‘Au fond du temple saint’ from Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Bizet 8.553030 Lotric/Morozov/Slovak RadioSO/Wildner She Walks in BeautyLord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) She walks in beauty like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skiesAnd all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes.Thus mellow’d to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade that more, one ray the lessHad half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tressOr softly lightens o’er her faceWhere thoughts serenely sweet expressHow pure, how dear their dwelling place. And on that cheek, and on that browSo soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow.But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below,A heart whose love is innocent. As You Are WomanRobert Graves (1895-1985)As you are woman, so be lovely,As you lovely, so be various,Merciful as constant, constant as various,So be mine, as I yours forever. Music: Adagio assai, Piano Concerto in G major, RavelThiollier/Polish National Radio SO/Wit 8.550735 Michael Sheen Michael Sheen is one of Britain’s most exciting youngactors, and a popular reader on Naxos AudioBooks. Since leaving RADA he hasplayed Romeo for the Royal Exchange, Manchester, appeared in the world premièreproduction of Harold Pinter’s Moonlight and taken the title role of Peer Gyntin Ninagawa’s world tour production. He has also played Jimmy Porter inOsborne’s Look Back in Anger. His film credits include Mary Reilly.