MANY fine organisations such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the BBC, King’s College, London and The Globe Theatre will mark Shakespeare’s birthday – and the 400th anniversary of his death – on Saturday.

Here is a side project: Rufus Wainwright and friends' interpretation of the Bard’s sonnets. Set to original arrangements, the likes of Sian Phillips, Peter Eyre, Helena Bonham Carter, Carrie Fisher and bizarrely Star Trek’s Captain Kirk (William Shatner) recite Shakespeare’s timeless sonnets – poems of 14 lines with fixed rhyme schemes.

Occasionally, the sonnets are set as song, as faultlessly demonstrated by Anna Prohaska on A Woman’s Face (Sonnet 20) and by Florence + The Machine’s Florence Welch on When In Disgrace With Fortune And Men’s Eyes (Sonnet 29).

Take All My Loves is the latest and most ambitious of Rufus Wainwright’s projects interpreting Shakespeare's works. Some may remember Wainwright’s involvement with the 2002 album When Love Speaks; a similar selection of poetry-based works with contributions from John Gielgud, Kenneth Branagh, Timothy Spall and Keb’ Mo’, among others.

Actually, that was a more accessible project altogether, but I digress. Seven years later, director Robert Wilson asked Wainwright to compose for his production of Shakespeare’s sonnets staged at the Berliner Ensemble. In 2010 three sonnets specifically orchestrated for the San Francisco Symphony appeared on Wainwrights ’studio album All Days Are Night: Songs For Lulu.

Now, once again Rufus collaborates with producer Marius de Vries. The pair worked together on Wainwright’s landmark albums Want One and Want Two. The partnership has produced a rich pot-pourri of gothic operatic influences, Tudor instruments and the spoken word with hallucinogenic overtones. Therefore, only approach with caution. This album demands the listener's full attention, ideally alone and absolutely without any other distraction. Under these circumstances enjoy the feast.