Music in the Plays, and the Plays in Music
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
TERCENTENARY SHAKESPEAREAN SUPPLEMENT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY. MARCH 26, 1916. MUSIC IN THE PLAYS, AND THE PLAYS IN MUSIC .Antcmio Sramd Cdlve as Ophelia Scotti *HOTo © By AIME DUPONT AS Id^O PHOTO © By Italian opera, upon my violently excited MtSHKIN senses." Of the score only one or two short extracts, and of the libretto nothing, have feeen published, although most of the scraps, even, of his other early efforts, have been religiously put into print. Wag- " " £<a.:mes UescLemojnd. Tver called " Das Liebesverbot a youth- PHOTO © By AIME. OUPONT ful indiscretion." Apparently it was so in- discreet that it cannot be allowed out of the 14 archives of Wahnfried." " Macbeth" has attracted many ambi- tious composers; but not one has been The Place It Held in His Mind and the able to make for it a musical setting that has long kept alive. ? The most significant la Verdi's, which he wrote in 1847 to a Place He Has Filled in Its History libretto by Francesco Piave, who pur- veyed librettos for a number of his operas, " Written for The New York Times Including " Rigoletto " and La Traviata." By Richard Aldrich Verdi rewrote the opera for performance *in Paris in 1865. It had- not been very successful before, and was not successful lived at a period and I'll dance to it." Unfortunately, she then in its new form. M " when England was one of the most did not sing it; and the original words of Among other attempts at a Macbeth song, partly consequence French composer Ch£lard in SHAKESPEAREmusical nations of Europe. Not the as a of her that of the neglect, are now 1827 only because the libretto only unknown. is notable did the England of that period Many other songs are mentioned and was wrttten by Rouget de l'lsle, who produce composers ranked among the quoted in the plays. The inference is ob- gained immortality as the author of " La greatest, but the and knowledge vious that they were all familiar to the Marseilaise." Jove of " " audiences, Otello seems to have had only music?a practical and often advanced and that refer- Verdi's ences to them were found apt and sug- one predecessor, also emanating from Italy technical knowledge?was widely spread gestive. Gi-u-lia. <3>risi ds and enjoying a large measure of favor in among people of all classes, high and low. Shakespeare calls for songs to be sung Pes clemorLd, its day. That was Rossini's. It was first Every person claiming any title to educa- in the course of many of his plays. They (F-MOM THt yytNOiLl. produced in Naples in 1816, less than a are too frequent many are too 1 year "II Barbiere di Siviglla." The tion or social prominence was expected to and of them COlL£Cr/OAf) after well known to need more than instancing; principal soprano part was written for be able to take his part in extemporaneous such as the " Willow " song in " Othello," Mme, Colbran, whom he afterward mar- part singing; he was also expected to be " O Mistress Mine" in " Twelfth Night," Doppler, and thus presented by Sir George ried. The opera became greatly popular " " " able to play at sight, and even to impro- It Was a Lover and His Lass in As Grove; and seemed destined at one time to outlive You Like It," " Where the Bee Sucks" " Returning from a Sunday stroll with " The Barber," which has Just celebrated vise according to the of " rules counter- in The Tempest." There are many some friends through the village of its hundredth birthday. It was consid- point, performances stringed " in on instru- more. It is likely that Shakespeare wrote Wlihring, he saw a friend sitting at a ered to have very dramatic music"; ments. many of these verses to tunes already in table In the beer garden of one of the some compared it favorably, In part at " " " Women of the upper classes were gen- existence and popular at the time; but taverns. The friend, when they joined him, least, with Don Giovanni and Fidelio," the investigators cer- a Shakespeare operas erally expert practitioners upon the vir- have not arrived at had volume of on the table. but it differed?how much are apt tainty on this point. Schubert seized it and began to read; but to differ!?from Shakespeare. lago was a ginals, a smaller-sized harpsichord; the Unfortunately there are only six songs before he had turned over many pages quite subordinate character and Roderigo spinet and harpsichord were no strangers of which we can be at all sure that we pointed to ' Hark, Hark the Lark,' and ex- a prominent one. The instrumentation possess in most houses. Pepyss diary gives an the music exactly as it was sung claimed: ' Such a lovely melody has come was thought to be shockingly noisy: and in the plays in Shakespeare's my head, some illustration of how much a gentleman of a time. The into if I had but muslo the' easygoing dramatic standards of its Globe Theatre was burned in 1613, and paper.' Some one drew a few staves on time are illustrated by the anecdote of a generation or two later than Shakespeare'a were fare, there, with it lost most of the performing the back of a bill of and amid listener whom the denouement of the opera including garden, " time concerned himself with music. Pepys manuscripts, the music of the the hubbub of the beer that beau- caused to cry out in excitement, Good was, as he calls himself, a " lover of songs. tiful song, so perfectly fitting the words, God! the is murdering the soprano! " Only one songs by so tenor a happy accompani- " " hardly ex of his class of was skillful and in the Merry ap- Musique"; but he was an composer whose fame has endured. That ment, came into perfect existence." The Wives of Windsor has to opera in ceptional case?he was far less an excep- is Thomas Morley, distinguished as a pealed strongly constructors of writer Hardly less popular and widely beloved the comic vein, many of whom have at- case a man of madrigals, the M " M " tional than such would be in who is the author of " than the Seranade is Who is Sylvia? tempted it. The liveliest of all of Fal- England or today. music of "It Was a Lover and His " America " from The Two Gentlemen of Verona." predecessors is Otto Nicolai's Lass in "As It," appearing staff s" knowledge You Like in The third of Schubert's Shakespearean set- " Windsor," This universal and love of 44 the Merry Wives of which the first book of his Ayres or Little Short tings, drinking song, " Come, among people England?that published the Thou can almost lay claim to the title of a real music the of Songs," in 1600. Robert Johnson, Vine," " Monarch of the from Antony and Shakespearean opera, ft is not unknown is, among the audiences who listened to a composer and lute player of the early Cleopatra," is much inferior to its com- to New York in recent years. Shakespeare's plays produced seventeenth century, wrote music for panions, and is correspondingly when he ?' little Where the Bee Sucks" " We are to have this season at the Metro- ?are and Full known. them reflected in the plays them- " politan, promises kept, an opera Fathom Five" in The Tempest," prob- operatic librettists, if are It is natural that the on Taming selves. There are few of them that do ably for performance in the play in Shake- an tribe, based "The of the Shrew": insatiable rummaging through " not contain some reference, often many speare's lifetime. The other four that are all the world's literature for their material, Hermann Goetz's Der Widerspftnstigen to contemporaneous Z&hmung," which has also been heard in and copious references, to music; some supposed be and to should repeatedly have laid violent hands sung now possess New York already. The title of another figurative frequent have been as we them upon the plays. These have served as a mention of music; pun- " " " " Capricciosa Cor- are the Willow song in Othello," O basis for more operas than the works of all one is preserved, "La Many M composed Martin y ning allusions to musical terms. of Mistress Mine" in Twelfth Night," both the other great poets put together. retta." in 1785 by one passages Soler, once a rival of Mozart, such are elaborated and have by unknown composers; "Lawn as White Shakespeare, however, has had his revenge considered more than passing significance in the play. as Driven Snow" from " The Winter's of almost all of of which the chief point of interest is that " the librettists and compos- Thus, passage recorders," " was by Lorenzo da Ponte, who the about the Tale," and Take O Take, Those Lips ers. quality the libretto " The and substance of the upon immortality through the three in which Hamlet turns Rosencrantz Away," from Measure for Measure," plays have shown themselves to tasted of Guildenstern; the be some- Mozart, who and punning contest in these two being variously attributed to thing that rarely plant librettos he wrote for and " Taming has failed to the years, died, The of the Shrew," Act 11., be- both John Wilson and Robert Johnson. or speedy lived his last and was buried Baptlsta; seeds of more less death in any tween Hortensio and Lorenzo s Musical settings of the songs in the perversion In New York.