In early 1951, Vaughan Williams was asked to write a special test piece for unaccompanied mixed chorus for the National Competitive Festival of the British Federation of Music Festivals, to be held in June of that year. Despite the fact that Vaughan Williams was president of the Federation, he was not overly enthusiastic about the commission. But after much prodding, he created the Three Shakespearean Songs, which were premiered on June 23, 1951, by the combined choirs of the Federation under the direction of C. Armstrong Gibbs.

All three of the Songs maintain a pretty consistently quiet dynamic. Rather than create a series of brash, virtuoso showpieces, Vaughan Williams went in the direction of subtlety and restraint. The first song, Full Fathom Five (from The Tempest), imitates the sounds of bells; the tonality is not quite stable at first, but becomes more so in the contrasting, melodic middle section. The cloud-capp'd towers from Prospero's farewell speech in The Tempest, is largely homophonic in texture and quite haunting. Vaughan Williams cited a portion of this text ("We are such stuff as dreams are made on...") in relation to the eerie and desolate final movement of his Symphony No. 6 (1948), and this song shares in some of that atmosphere. A brief and lively Over hill, over dale (from A Midsummer Night's Dream) closes the set.

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