A selection of William Shakespeare's much-loved sonnets, read by some of the world's finest actors, together with musical settings of passages from his sonnets and plays. The celebrated musicians have been brought together specially for this recording by the composer Michael Kamen. All the texts are included in the full-colour booklet, which features specially commissioned illustrations.

'Shakespeare and I first joined forces when I was in a summer-camp production of Twelfth Night. I played Sir Toby Belch in cowboy style - I was a Mexican Bandido brandishing guns and wearing fabulous boots. We next met in high school where I studied Othello. It was a music and art special school in New York City, with great teachers who encouraged our creativity by exposing us to masterpieces in music, art and literature. Our teacher asked us for a report but suggested that we musicians could write an opera instead, so I did. I based the piece on the original text (despite Verdi and Boito); I wrote well and ambitiously, motivated by the master. If I had completed it it would have
lasted twelve hours as I meticulously set every word! When I submitted the first draft of the first part to the class (singing all the parts) my teacher smiled and said he loved it, but he was only kidding! I forgave him because I loved the Willow Song I had written.

'Joy Gelardi, a London producer, invited me to make a benefit album with friends and workmates based on Shakespeare. I asked several of my friends and was delighted when Annie Lennox agreed; Bryan Ferry and then Des'ree followed soon after. Des'ree introduced me to Joseph Shabalala and he brought his fabulous group Ladysmith Black Mambazo to add their sweet voices to this international collaboration. Rufus Wainwright joined us with a lovely sonnet set to his beautiful music. I was introduced to Keb’ Mo’ by Robert Urband and Keb’ brilliantly joined the party. Barbara Bonney has made my mid-teenage dreams come true by performing my Willow Song! Finally, Joseph Fiennes, who has given us Shakespeare in Love, has contributed with the intro and outro to this recording.

'Alan Rickman heard the early stages of the work and suggested that we could benefit the bard and RADA with the magic actors herein brought together by Lord Attenborough and Nicholas Barter, Ellis Jones, Antonia Gillum-Webb and Lady Samuel. Richard Lyttelton agreed to release this recording to the world and I am grateful to them all for their patient help. Love is speaking, enjoy.'

Michael Kamen (composer and producer)

Track listing:
1. Joseph Fiennes: Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises (The Tempest)
2. Annie Lennox: Live with me and be my love (Christopher Marlowe)
3. John Gielgud: As an unperfect actor on the stage (Sonnet 23)
4. Alan Rickman: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (130)
5. Diana Rigg: Why is my verse so barren of new pride (76)
6. Richard Attenborough: Who will believe my verse in time to come (17)
7. Paul Rhys: That you were once unkind befriends me now (120)
8. Juliet Stevenson: How oft, when thou, my music (128)
9. Rufus Wainwright: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes (29)
10 Janet McTeer: Being your slave, what should I do but tend (57)
11 Alan Bates: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry (66)
12 Marianne Jean-Baptiste: When I consider everything that grows (15)
13 David Warner: Let those who are in favour with their stars (25)
14 Siân Phillips: They that have power to hurt and will do none (94)
15 John Hurt: Those lips that Love’s own hand did make (145)
16 John Potter: Come again: sweet love doth now invite
17 Ralph Fiennes: Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame (129)
18 Matthew Rhys: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me (132)
19 Imelda Staunton: I never saw that you did painting need (83)
20 Kenneth Branagh: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought (30)
21 Fiona Shaw: Is it thy will thy image should keep open (61)
22 Henry Goodman: Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war (46)
23 Keb’ Mo’: No more be grieved at that which thou hast done (35)
24 Susannah York: O never say that I was false of heart (109)
25 Timothy Spall: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest (3)
26 Peter Barkworth: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill (91)
27 Gemma Jones: How heavy do I journey on the way (50)
28 Jonathan Pryce: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea (65)
29 Richard Wilson: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore (60)
30 Des’ree: The quality of mercy is not strained (The Merchant of Venice)
31 Tom Courtenay: Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said (56)
32 Zoe Waites: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind (113)
33 Edward Fox: Be wise as thou art cruel ; do not press (140)
34 Trevor Eve: Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye (9)
35 Imogen Stubbs: So is it not with me as with that Muse (21)
36 David Harewood: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws (19)
37 Barbara Bonney: The Willow Song (Othello)
38 Richard Johnson: When my love swears that she is made of truth (138)
39 Martin Jarvis: When I do count the clock that tells the time (12)
40 Roger Hammond: What potions have I drunk of siren tears (119)
41 Richard Briers: Not marble nor the gilded monuments (55)
42 John Sessions: Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye (62)
43 Thelma Holt: Let me not to the marriage of true minds (116)
44 Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Music to hear, why hears’t thou music sadly (8)
45 Caroline Blakiston: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow (2)
46 Peter Bowles: No longer mourn for me when I am dead (71)
47 Sylvia Syms: In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes (141)
48 Robert Lindsay: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day (34)
49 Ioan Gruffudd: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck (14)
50 John Hurt: My love is as a fever, longing still (147)
51 Bohdan Poraj: The little Love-God lying once asleep (154)
52 Bryan Ferry: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day (18)
53 Joseph Fiennes: Our revels now are ended (The Tempest)