Released this week, just in time for Valentine's Day: a sumptuous collection of Shakespeare's sonnets in words and music, featuring the voices of Richard Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Joseph Finnes, Ralph Fiennes, John Gielgud, John Hurt, Annie Lennox, Rufus Wainwright and Barbara Bonney singing... And the late, lamented Alan Rickman in a elegiac reading of My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.

According to the album's producer Michael Kamen, Rickman was enthusiastic about the project and was involved early on.

When Love Speaks is also a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death this year.

Love is speaking... Enjoy.

SONNET 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.