Shirley & Dolly Collins
『Love, Death & The Lady』
CD: Harvest / EMI Records
7243 8 29840 2 7 (1994)
Printed in U.K. / Made in the UK
1. Death & The Lady
2. Glenlogie
3. The Oxford Girl
4. Are You Going To Leave Me?
5. The Outlandish Knight
6. Go From My Window
7. Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime
8. Geordie
9. Salisbury Plain
10. Fair Maid of Islington
11. Six Dukes
12. Polly On The Shore
13. Plains of Waterloo
14. Sailor From Dover
15. Young John
16. Short Jacket & White Trousers
17. The Bold Fisherman
Shirley Collins sings with
arrangements by
Dolly Collins for
Christopher Hogwood: harpsichord
Alan Lumsden: sackbut
Adam Skeaping: bass viol, violone
Roderick Skeaping: bass viol
Eleanor Sloan: rebec
John Fordham: recorder
Dolly Collins: flute-organ & piano
Terry Cox: percussion
Peter Wood: concertina
Produced by Austin John Marshall
Engineered by Philip Macdonald
All tracks traditional arr. by S. & D. Collins, except:
Tracks 6 & 12 traditional arr. S. Collins/P. Wood
Track 15 words traditional arr. S. & D. Collins / tune: S. Collins
Track 17 traditional arr. B. Copper
Project co-ordination: Tim Chacksfield
CD package design: Phil Smee
Tracks 1-13 originally released in 1970
Tracks 14-17 previously unissued
◆本CD解説（David Suff）より◆
「'Love, Death and the Lady', first released by Harvest records in 1970, captures in a startling series of bleak, trance-like arrangements some of the sisters' finest recorded performances. Harpsichord, piano, Mediaeval woodwind and stringed instruments are beautifully interwoven around Shirley's singing into a rich musical tapestry. The sympathetic production by Austin John Marshall, Shirley's husband at the time, maintains an exquisite tension between the vocals and the musical settings.」
「'Love, Death and the Lady' was chosen as Folk Album of the Month by the Melody Maker and was included in the year end polls of the best folk records of 1970. Contemporary reviews commented upon 'Shirley's coming of age as a singer', and upon the icy melancholy inherent in the performances. In a recent interview Shirley suggested, "I think it was just because I was quite devastatingly lonely and hurt at the time of the recording. My marriage was in the throes of ending... and I didn't know what I was going to do. It wasn't easy music to listen to. I'm surprised anybody bought any of it at all. I didn't ever sing to sell, I sang to sing, to express what was going on with me and what I wanted, I suppose."」
「Both sisiters were suffering from recent emotional upsets and Shirley's choice of material for the record reflects their mood at the time. "The songs are very direct. about people who feel very deeply about things... for me the songs I chose to sing were always reflecting my feelings at the time. All my records reflect very much what was going on in my personal life at the time."」
◆シャーリー・コリンズによる楽曲解説より◆
「Death & The Lady
This ballad puts me in mind of Ingmar Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal", in which a knight plays chess with Death - with his life as the prize. It is just one of many such confrontations dating from the 16th century.」
◆本CDについて◆
シャーリー＆ドリー・コリンズ『ラヴ・デス・アンド・ザ・レディ』。
ブックレット（全8頁）にクレジット、楽曲解説（Shirley Collins, March 1994）、CDライナーノーツ（David Suff, March 1994）、写真図版（モノクロ）3点、裏表紙にトラックリスト。インレイにトラックリストと写真図版（モノクロ）2点。
LPは1970年にEMI/Harvestからリリースされました（SHVL 771）。
前作『アンセム・イン・エデン』に引き続き、クリストファー・ホグウッドその他「ロンドン古楽コンソート」のメンバーが参加、パーカッションはペンタングルのテリー・コックス。ドリーはポルタティフ・オルガンだけでなくピアノも演奏しています。
たいへん独自な音楽になっていて、本作がたぶんシャーリー・コリンズの最高傑作なのではないかと思います。
★★★★★
Death and the Lady
Plains of Waterloo
