Appreciation by Alan Herringshaw

Shakespeare’s Music: Sounds and Sweet Airs

I first heard John on Radio Leicester and also on Radio 4 presenting Something Understood, the name of which neither I nor John could remember! It came to us during the interval of the talk, which by that time, because of a well designed chronological order, had reached the Romantic era—but I digress. Let's take the talk and its beautifully constructed variety from the beginning.

As a way of introduction we heard The Musicians of the Globe Theatre playing an anonymous piece entitled Shakespeare’s Musick, which was a fitting introduction to the way music is now used to enhance one’s enjoyment of the plots or words of Shakespeare's plays.

Over the last decade I have been lucky enough to visit Stratford, where I saw Henry V and Twelfth Night, plus a memorable visit to the Barbican to see King Lear. In all cases the music accompanying and amplifying the plot became almost as important as the words—something I think Shakespeare was well aware of when he wrote his entertainments!

Most of the rest of the musical examples featured in John’s talk have become popular enough to be heard without necessarily referring to the literary work for which they were composed or by which they were inspired—although Mendelssohn’s incidental music of which we heard the Scherzo is still referred to as Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This was Medelssohn’s second visit to the play for inspiration, having first written the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1826, which premiered in 1827. The overture featured in the second iteration prefacing the Scherzo (which we heard) and one other very well known piece The Wedding March, which has long since lost its association with any Shakespearian play and is now the signal for the celebrations to begin at many 20th and 21st century wedding ceremonies.

John’s expertly curated selection of music was a joy to listen to from start to finish and I am not going to summarise or list the works played completely. Suffice it to say that I was particularly pleased that Prokoviev’s ballet music Romeo and Juliet Op. 64, based on Shakespeare’s play, made it to the final cut. First composed in 1935, it was substantially revised for its Soviet premiere in early 1940. It is a piece of music full of memories, of seeing the Bolshoi Ballet Company with orchestra performing at the Royal Opera House, seated in the orchestral slips ("the view is restricted but what you can see is very clear!") and watching in absolute awe of the strength and poise of the entire company.

John’s final choice deserves mention: Verdi’s Falstaff, which was an excellent choice of finale, if considered by some to be a "connoisseur's opera". Verdi wrote Falstaff, the last of his 26 operas, as he approached the age of 80. It was his second comedy, and his third work based on a Shakespeare play following Macbeth and Othello. Richard Aldrich, music critic of the New York Times, was one of the first to express the view that, whilst the general public might have had difficulty with the work, "to connoisseurs it was an unending delight". The plot revolves around the thwarted, sometimes farcical, efforts of the (rather overweight) knight Sir John Falstaff to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands' wealth. It was well received when first premiered but quickly fell out of favour until a young Arturo Toscanini, when Musical Director of La Scala, Milan (from 1898) and Metropolitan Opera (from 1908) programmed Falstaff from the start of his tenure.

Verdi and Prokofiev having survived the final edit together with all of the other composers meant that John gave the sizeable audience a varied and very entertaining evening of musical excerpts that covered all bases.

Whether a connoisseur or otherwise, I am sure all left the talk having learnt a little more of Shakespeare’s involvement in inspiring musical achievements.