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Log inCan music illuminate a Shakespeare text, and if so, what does it add?
Can music illuminate a Shakespeare text, and if so, what does it add?
by Admin on Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:41 pm
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Yes... sometimes!
by BDW* on Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:42 pm
My first response to this question is, yes, sometimes. An example of the combination of music and Shakespeare that I find very effective is Ralph Vaughan William’s setting of ‘Orpheus with his lute’. I have a great affection for the song and I cannot read Shakespeare’s text without hearing Vaughan William’s music.
When I hear it sung, I tend to focus on the images of the poem; its own inner music of rhythm and rhyme is greatly attenuated in musical setting. When I read it separately from the music (though the music is still working in my inner ear), I am surprised again by the rhymes and the rhythm of the words.
Opera based on Shakespeare is an entirely different story, as we discussed in a symposium on a very similar topic at the School of Music at Leeds in January.
Several speakers pointed out the fact that very few opera composers use Shakespeare’s words; instead they tend to set the stories or situations of a play, or enlarge on characters from a play.
Notably, only Britten, in Midsummer Night’s Dream, attempts to set large passages of unadapted Shakespeare text as opera (as opposed to song- where it is more common).
So we may consider that the most likely method for an opera composer to take when interacting with Shakespeare is to use one or several aspects of a play or character as a starting point, but then to create a new work, which may, or more probably may not, be an illumination of Shakespeare’s own creation.
When I hear it sung, I tend to focus on the images of the poem; its own inner music of rhythm and rhyme is greatly attenuated in musical setting. When I read it separately from the music (though the music is still working in my inner ear), I am surprised again by the rhymes and the rhythm of the words.
Opera based on Shakespeare is an entirely different story, as we discussed in a symposium on a very similar topic at the School of Music at Leeds in January.
Several speakers pointed out the fact that very few opera composers use Shakespeare’s words; instead they tend to set the stories or situations of a play, or enlarge on characters from a play.
Notably, only Britten, in Midsummer Night’s Dream, attempts to set large passages of unadapted Shakespeare text as opera (as opposed to song- where it is more common).
So we may consider that the most likely method for an opera composer to take when interacting with Shakespeare is to use one or several aspects of a play or character as a starting point, but then to create a new work, which may, or more probably may not, be an illumination of Shakespeare’s own creation.
Re: Can music illuminate a Shakespeare text, and if so, what does it add?
by docv on Fri May 09, 2008 12:31 am
clearly music can and does add another dimension to shakespeare
take any play - verdi's macbetto is for me a prime example - and one is offered another world of emotion by a genius operating in his own medium
res ipsa loquitor - operatic versions of the bard's plays add significantly to our understanding and enjoyment of his monumental creations...if only more existed
take any play - verdi's macbetto is for me a prime example - and one is offered another world of emotion by a genius operating in his own medium
res ipsa loquitor - operatic versions of the bard's plays add significantly to our understanding and enjoyment of his monumental creations...if only more existed