The album, which features soprano Eloise Irving, and pianist Malcolm Riley, includes orchestral music by Ralph Vaughan Williams for Shakespeare plays at Stratford Memorial Theatre and for BBC radio. All the album’s orchestral music has never been recorded previously.

James Ross writes: 'Vaughan Williams’s music has a special warmth and depth of humanity. This album captures the composer's instinctive sympathy with the characters of Shakespeare's plays. Vaughan Williams pays tribute to the music of Shakespeare's time but goes far beyond pastiche. His music for Richard II transcends 'incidental music', bringing us a musical portrait of the complex and often dark world that Shakespeare evokes.'