O mistress mine, song for voice & piano (from "Shakespeare Songs (5)")

• Date: 1863
• Composer: Arthur Sullivan
• Period: Post-Romantic (1870-1909)

Review

This text has inspired dozens, if not hundreds, of English composers, and Sullivan was no exception. The song, one of his five Shakespeare songs, opens with a sonorous passage in the bass, immediately followed by a lighter passage in the treble, suggesting a dialog between the lovers as well as the subsequent reference in the text to the lover's being able to "sing both high and low." The carpe diem mood in the text is echoed in the seductive lyricism of the consistently legato vocal lines, occasionally embellished with a flirtatious ornamentation. ~ Anne Feeney, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Guinevere and Other Ballads by Arthur Sullivan
Sullivan: Sacred and Secular Music	1993

Previous:	O mistress mine, for voice & piano, Op. 65/1
Next:	O mitissime Jesu, motet in 3 parts for 6 voices (Book 1. Sacrarum Cantionum)