Song Recital At University

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 12

Song Recital At University

A recital of songs by various composers, using words by Shakespeare as (texts, was given in the University Hail yesterday afternoon by Mr Elric Hooper with Mr Maurice Till playing the accompaniments. Most of the composers were contemporaneous with Shakespeare or belonged to the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Mr Hooper, an actor by profession, has an enviable command of excellent enunciation, and a trained feeling for the style of these songs. He has a lyric tenor voice, of somewhat over-nasalised resonance but of pleasant quality. It tends to lack variety of colour. Mr Hooper related each song to its play showing how Shakespeare first used songs merely as distractions and embellishments, but later as integral parts of the story either by way of comment or to highlight some particular idea, or to help in creating character. And some there were—and among them are to be found the most delicate and most charming—which have no meaning whatsoever but contribute in an indefinable way, and contribute greatly nevertheless. Mr Till’s accompaniments were models of stylish grace. —C.F.B.