Poetry and Satirical Verse

Music

Creative

POETRY & SATIRICAL VERSE.

As a composer, Richard Hill has been lucky enough to have enjoyed commissions involving the works of some of England's greatest poets. Having been introduced to Geoffrey Chaucer's pin-bright, sparkling medieval poem of an English Spring pilgrimage 'The Canterbury Tales' whilst at school, he found himself some years later, working with Professor Nevill Coghill, then Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, on a populist musical dramatisation of C.T. Nevill Coghill was already famous for having produced the definitive translation of the poem from Middle English, in verse, and this stage version, created along with collaborators John Hawkins and Martin Starkie, ran for five and a half years at the Phoenix Theatre in London's West End. After a Broadway run it went on two tours of the U.S.A., was in production all over the world for many years and is still performed today.

Such a magical 'close encounter' with Chaucer further inspired Richard's love of poetry. It has been followed throughout his career by similar experiences with John Mortimer's 'Will Shakespeare' for A.T.V. television production and with his musical settings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan'.

The exciting new Worlds Within Worlds project for Academy Recordings is a natural progression in Richard Hill's creative journey, combining his own poetry read by the composer and set within his own musical tapestries, to create a unique, dual-layered and very personal realisation of Hill's wide-ranging imagination. Here, in an anthology comprising two albums, Worlds Within Worlds Volumes 1 and 2, are poems of social conscience, philosophy, history and archaeology as well as political satire, science and astronomy, all set within specially created sound tapestries unique to their subject matter.

Worlds Within Worlds Volumes 1 & 2

Click the Image above to listen to sound clips and to enjoy a very different poetic experience, in the parallel universe that is Richard Hill's Worlds Within Worlds.

Home | Help | Contact Us | Useful Links | Terms of Use | MP3 Archive