Vaughan Williams made many settings of texts from Shakespeare throughout his life. This one the Dirge for Fidele was written for two Voices with Piano Accompaniment in 1922 as a stand-alone song. Its text is one ofShakespeare’s many celebrated songs ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’ including the lines ‘Golden lads and girls all must as chimney-sweepers come to dust’ from Cymbeline.Perhaps one of music’s least dirge-like dirges theaccompaniment is soothing and the Vocal lines soaring. It was sung at Sir Laurence Olivier’s funeral at Westminster Abbey in 1989.
