When Love Speaks

As read in Ananova, "Alan Rickman has helped compile an album of songs based on Shakespeare's work set to music". Fans from around the world greet this news.

The CD was launched at RADA on 17 January, 2002. A live concert to showcase the album will take place at The Old Vic in London on February 10. Mr. Rickman is scheduled to be one of the hosts. Read about the concert at NME.com (thanks to Jennie for the news article).

Barbara sent a beautiful wallpaper

The CD track listings show the following poems, read by the artists:

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

Total of 53 tracks. This information courtesy of Renie

The CD can be pre-ordered through Amazon.co.uk, with an expected release date of 4 February, 2002

Mr. Rickman reads his poem caressingly slowly and beautifuly -- you will agree with Sandy Bauers that, "if velvet could speak, it would sound like Rickman". To preview his reading, go the The official When Love Speaks site.