David STOLL
The Shakespeare Suite
Solid Strings (quartet), plus instrumentalists
River Run Records RVRCD52
[68:53]
This is one of several CDs issued this year in celebration of Shakespeare. Most have
presented music from Shakespeare's time, and/or music that may have been used in early
performances of the plays, but David Stoll offers us portraits of 11 of the Bard's most
famous characters, giving the pieces the overall title The Shakespeare Suite. Probably
the closet precedent is Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder, and though Stoll's music
is much less exuberant than Ellington's, it does have a flavour of jazz about some of the
movements. These are distinct pieces. As the booklet notes, all are separate commissions,
some anonymous, some by private individuals, some corporate, and all are chamber works,
Stoll drawing on the string quartet Solid Strings and various instrumentalists to give
voice to the different personages from the plays.
Thus, perhaps obviously, Falstaff is a bassoon. Viola, a woman disguised as a man,
is characterised by both flute, and perhaps obviously, viola. Miranda is the string quartet,
which suggests a rather schizophrenic young woman, while Puck is a piano and Hamlet a cello
(given a rather famous cigar advert I'm almost surprised he didn't become a bass). Some of
the music sounds rather thin, the inspiration variable. The sound is nicely detailed,
though the recording could sometimes use more presence and the soloists certainly take
the music in their stride. As an album of dinner party music it is largely agreeable,
yet there is little to really make one sit up and pay attention after the first couple of listens.
Attractive and playful as some of the music is, the more serious passages lack the weight
to get inside the minds of likes of Othello and Hamlet. An agreeable, but easily forgettable release.
Gary S. Dalkin
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