Great Historical Shakespeare Recordings

Compiled by David Timson and Nicolas Soames

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An unusual disc containing some of the great historical recordings of actors from the beginning of the recording era.

CD 1: Historical Shakespeare performances by Ainley, John Barrymore, Bourchier, Casson, Forbes-Robertson, John Geilgud (1920s and 1940s).

CD 2: A miscellany. Some startling historical performances in a wide range of works from Edith Evans, Charles Laughton, Noel Coward, Sarah Bernhardt, Fred Terry, Laurel and Hardy, Edwin Booth, Bransby Williams, Jean Cocteau, Feodor Chaliapin and others.

Features music of the period

Speak the Speech...
In a talk given at the 2008 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, David Timson, director of four Naxos AudioBooks Shakespeare recordings and author of Shakespeare Stories, surveys the changing styles of Shakespeare performance through recordings starting with Henry Irving in the 1890s through to Kenneth Branagh in the twenty-first century.

Click on the link below to listen to/download the files. Alternatively, control-click (Mac), or right-click (PC) on a link, and choose ‘Save linked file as...’ to save the file to your computer.

Speak the Speech... (MP3, 58 mins, 20 MB)
Accompanying notes (PDF, 120 KB)

2 CDs • Running Time: c.2:35:00 • ISBN: 9-62634-200-5 • Catalogue no: NA220012 • RRP: £10.99