Stylish performances of Clive Osgood’s Three Shakespeare Songs from the Sofia Vokalensemble and Bengt Ollén
In 2008 the Esterházy Chamber Choir in Lewes commissioned a set of Three Shakespeare Songs from composer Clive Osgood (b.1977). They’ve now been recorded by the Swedish choir, Sofia Vokalensemble, based in Stockholm, and conducted by Bengt Ollén. It’s a short set, coming it at around twelve and a half minutes for the three songs, but they are given a bright and secure reading here, with beautifully blended singing throughout. The texts all come from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’, and have all been set by many composers, from contemporaries of Shakespeare right through to the modern day. ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind’, with its penetrating clusters and semitone clashes, is a striking opener, and the bell-like sopranos atop a rich, resonant recording are very effective. However, Osgood doesn’t just rely on the cluster harmonies here, with contrasting rhythmic movement for the ‘Heigh ho! sing’ chorus. ‘Under the greenwood tree’ has more straightforwardly warm choral harmonies, and a bright soprano solo rises out of the second verse. Here, the thicker choral textures could be brought down in the balance a little to allow the solo to fully shine through, but there is warmth of tone from all here. The set concludes with ‘It was a lover and his lass’, in a swingy, playful setting from Osgood, with hints of barber-shop. Here, the light, clear sopranos would benefit from a little more confident weight in places, but Ollén shapes the varied textures well. Osgood has certainly employed contrasting styles in the three songs here, with ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind’ being the most convincingly successful. The set certainly offers a choir the opportunity to demonstrate range, and the Sofia Vokalensemble definitely achieve this. I reviewed an enjoyable album of Clive Osgood’s Sacred Choral Music back in 2019 (here), but there is a greater variety of compositional style on display in this short set here. As it did for the Esterházy Chamber Choir, this set would sit well within any programme of Shakespeare settings, of which there are of course many to choose from.
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