![Shakespeare Coriolanus [ Caedmon]](https://i0.wp.com/archive.org/download/02CoriolanusCaedmon2/R-9735810-1485552609-7548.gif.jpg?w=600&ssl=1)
Caedmon’s Coriolanus, fronted by a granite-voiced Richard Burton, is one of those LPs that feels like it’s been carved out of a hillside rather than recorded in a studio. Burton doesn’t so much speak the verse as detonate it—every line flares with that volcanic Welsh baritone that made even his grocery lists sound operatic. Jessica Tandy, Michael Hordern, Robert Stephens, and the rest of the cast round things out with a clean, unfussy delivery that keeps the focus exactly where it belongs: on Shakespeare’s most abrasive, least domesticated tragedy.
Director Howard Sackler opts for austerity—no sonic fireworks, no theatrical gimmickry. Just actors, breath, and text. And surprisingly, that’s enough. The result is a taut, muscular performance that captures the play’s chilly political undercurrents without ever slipping into doctrinaire sermonizing. Yes, it’s an artifact of the early ’60s Shakespeare boom, but it hasn’t yellowed. Like Coriolanus himself, it barreled into the world already half-made of stone.