Composed in 1851, Giuseppe Lillo’s La gioventù di Shakespeare (‘The Youth of Shakespear’), also known as Il sogno d’una notte estiva, is a rare gem from the world of Italian Romantic opera. The sparkling overture captures the work’s theatrical spirit, with elegant melodies, lively rhythms and a deft blend of lyricism and drama. Reflecting Lillo’s gift for operatic storytelling and his affinity with the bel canto tradition, it serves as an engaging introduction to an opera that imaginatively explores the young Shakespeare’s world.
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 Music example (pdf)
Format: Instrumental parts
Code: HH671.IPT
Price: £55.00
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GEORGE BERG - ELEVEN GLEES
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Born in 1730 to humble parents living in London, where his German-born father was a staymaker, George Berg was a favourite pupil of the eminent musical pedagogue John Christopher Pepusch, from whom he imbibed a love of the so-called ‘ancient’ music, both secular and sacred, and a liking for experiment – in music and in chemistry, which was his cherished weekend pursuit. His output as a composer was large and diverse, embracing instrumental sonatas and concertos, voluntaries for organ (his main instrument), anthems, an Italian-language opera (the first ever written by an English composer) and, especially, songs.
ELEVEN GLEES
Composer: George Berg
Editor: Michael Talbot
Publication date: October 2026
Instruments: Three or four voices
Format: Full score
Series: Baroque
Pages: vii/29
ISMN: 979 0 708213 82 6
ISBN: 978 1 917997 11 9
Code: hh666.FSC
Price: £29.00
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Glees represent a kind of transitional stage between the madrigals for unaccompanied voices of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the part-songs composed from the nineteenth century onwards. They are for closely packed unaccompanied voices, generally all-male (a typical combination is two tenors plus bass), and they can be sung either by solo voices or chorally. Typically, they are polystrophic, each stanza of the chosen poem being set to different music. They may be either serious or light-hearted in tone. The eleven three-part and four-part glees by Berg published from 1764 to 1774, the year before his death, in the annually issued volumes of the Warren Collection (named after their compiler, the Catch Club’s secretary Thomas Warren) are fine, sensitive music that expresses the diversity the genre is capable of encompassing. Four of them reveal Berg’s great enthusiasm for Italian music (he visited Italy in 1760–62) by having Italian texts.
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ed. Michael Talbot
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Music example (pdf)
