Shakespeare in music
William Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff said in Henry IV, Part II, “I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.” We can broadly paraphrase Sir John when speaking of Shakespeare, who was not only musical in himself, but the cause of music in others.
Shakespeare’s world was filled with music, his plays and poems sing with glorious language and dance with splendid rhythms. Like any good dramatist, Shakespeare also used songs and dance music to underscore events on stage. His lyrics to the many songs in his plays have been set to music by such composers as Franz Schubert, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Roger Quilter and others.
Incidental music to stage productions and scores to filmed versions of the plays feature some of the most inspired Shakespearean music. Felix Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream perfectly portrays the fairy world of Oberon, Titania and Puck, while also capturing the earthy humor of the low characters, Peter Quince and Nick Bottom. 20th century composers have reveled in the opportunities that Shakespeare on film has offered. Dimitry Shostakovich wrote scores for Hamlet and King Lear, and Sir William Walton’s music for three films starring Sir Laurence Olivier (Hamlet, Henry V, Richard III) are classics.
The opera and ballet stages have had their share of Shakespearean masterworks. Sergey Prokofiev’s grand ballet Romeo and Juliet glows with some his most brilliant orchestral writing. The three Shakespeare operas of Giuseppe Verdi, Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff, are mainstays of the operatic repertoire and actually rival the plays in passion, drama and wit. Verdi worshipped Shakespeare and was actually planning an opera based on King Lear, but the project never came to fruition.
Verdi didn’t hold a monopoly on Shakespearean operas. The title role in Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet offers a star turn for baritones and Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a superb blend of exotic vocal and orchestral writing. Perhaps more than any other play, Romeo and Juliet has been a favorite subject. The tale of tragic young love is ideal for operatic treatment and it inspired such composers as Charles Gounod, Vincenzo Bellini, Frederick Delius and Leonard Bernstein.
Romeo and Juliet is also the subject of the most famous of all Shakespeare-inspired works, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture. The fiery young conductor Gustavo Dudamel leads the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestral of Venezuela in our featured recording, which also includes Tchaikovsky’s music for Hamlet and The Tempest. Some Shakespearean opera trivia: what Shakespeare-based work opened the new Metropolitan Opera House in 1966? Answer: Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra.
Music in Shakespeare’s plays
The master playwright and poet William Shakespeare mentioned music many times in his works. He sometimes included song lyrics in his characters' dialogue, used music or musical instruments as symbolism, or as a metaphor. Let's take a look at some quotations referring to music from Shakespeare's greatest plays.
"Give me some music; music, moody food Of us that trade in love." - Cleopatra from Anthony and Cleopatra (Act II, Scene 5)
"Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me." - Hamlet from Hamlet (Act III, Scene 2)
"Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear." - Caesar from Julius Caesar (Act I, Scene 2)
"It is my soul that calls upon my name. How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears!" - Romeo from Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene 2)
"Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a song." - Clown from All's Well That Ends Well (Act III, Scene 2)
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts" - Jaques from As You Like It (Act II, Scene 7)
"The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music." Lorenzo from The Merchant of Venice (Act V, Scene 1)
"Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music." - Oberon from A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act II, Scene 1)
"I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe." Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing (Act II, Scene 3)
"But this rough magic I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd Some heavenly music — which even now I do, — To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book." - Prospero from The Tempest (Act V, Scene 1)
"If music be the food of love, play on." Orsino from Twelfth Night (Act I, Scene 1)
“Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon.” - Valentine from Two Gentleman of Verona (Act III, Scene 1)