symphonicshakespeare

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Program Notes from Ever-Fixed Mark: A Senior Voice Recital

An Introduction

Last year, I presented a junior lecture recital entitled “Symphonic Shakespeare”, a study of the adaptations of playwright William Shakespeare’s texts into western Classical music. It only made sense that I should continue learning about the ways in which his timeless narratives and characters were rewritten, redefined, or interpreted by the music in which they were set. This recital aims to address the role of the soprano, which I have come to find in many contexts represents the love interest. It is no secret that Shakespeare’s writing embodies a type of romance, eroticism, and affection that shapes the way we as a society approach and understand relationships. Aside from understanding the significance of adaptation, then, this recital is to showcase the multifaceted and complex concept of “love”.

About the title: “Ever-Fixed Mark” is taken from Sonnet 116, in which he writes: “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove. / O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,” (116: 2-8). I thought it was fitting, as all of the songs on the program have to do with love or some shape of it, to name my recital. Additionally, written notation, music itself is but an ever-fixed mark, bound to exist so long as the score, or even the melody from rote, is maintained.

“It was a lover and his lass”

The arts have intertwined for as long as they’ve existed as a means of expression—and in the English Renaissance, especially on the stage of the Elizabethan theatre, so they did. “It was a lover and his lass” was a diegetic (meaning the music was a witnessed part of the performance) number in Act V, scene III of As You Like It, sung by one of the pages to the betrothed Audrey and Touchstone. In the scene, Touchstone expresses dislike of the song, as it represents little of actual love; its lyrics are ridiculous, overall, it’s silly, and there’s really no substance—but the music, just as love itself, is beautiful despite the frivolity of the antics happening lyrically.

Thomas Morley (1557-1602) was an English renaissance secular and sacred composer, singer, organist, and publisher, probably most renowned today for his madrigals (secular a cappella pieces for six to eight voices). He published this tune in his anthology, First Book of Ayres, in 1600. It contained English songs for voice and lute, and although it cannot be confirmed that this version of the song was used in the production that William Shakespeare would have presented at the Globe, it is known that Morley and Shakespeare, two creative contemporaries, did not collaborate accidentally.

“If Music Be The Food of Love”

Following his death, Shakespeare’s works (as well as those of other authors) were disseminated into spin-offs and retellings by other playwrights and publishers. His portfolio edition of these stories would disappear from the repertoire, but nonetheless influenced English literature and drama for centuries to come.

Colonel Henry Heveningham (1651-1700) created a text, adapted from Duke Orsino’s opening dialogue in Twelfth Night I.i.1-15 as he laments to his attendant Curio about his failed attempts at wooing the fair Olivia. Compare the original text to the lyrics below:

Although it certainly comes from the same place (Duke Orsino’s desperate, fascinated appetite for a humanistic satisfaction be it tangible or expressed through creative means) it’s obviously different. The latter, by Heveningham, is written as a ballad, between two lovers, instead of an address.  Henry Purcell sets this strophic text with word painting, the longing emphasised by a melody that slowly climbs the staff with accompanying crescendo, that eventually falls dramatically at the end of the verse, relinquishing itself to the accompaniment and too, hypothetically, the object of the serenade.

“O, let me weep,” from The Fairy Queen

The Fairy Queen is another example of Shakespeare’s work being adapted after his death. This particular semi-opera, first performed in 1692, is based on Midsummer Night’s Dream—in the spoken moments, the original text remains unchanged, but Henry Purcell (1659-1695) and his librettist Elkanah Settle (1648-1724) change some of the text in ‘masques’, or musical scenes prompted by magical, supernatural, or drunken characters, to fit seventeenth-century dramatic conventions. “O, let me weep”, or as it is more commonly called, ‘The Plaint’ is one of these masques. It was written after the opera had already premiered, as a kind of showcase piece for countertenor or soprano performer—superstars in their own right during the Baroque era.

The Baroque era was the last period in which English composers held strong relevance until the turn of the twentieth century, compared to their continental contemporaries. Henry Purcell was a powerhouse in this regard; he was proficient in various styles of counterpoint yet mainly championed the English Baroque style in his works, composed in both sacred and secular genres with substantial popularity, and also composed for theatre and opera.

“V’adoro, pupille” from Giulio Cesare

Shakespeare wrote the historical drama Julius Caesar in Spring of 1599. The political tensions in England were high, as Queen Elizabeth reached the end of her reign. Subjects of republicanism versus monarchy were circulating, and to depict the killing of a king would be tantamount to treason. However, by using Plutarch’s Lives as his source material, an author that Queen Elizabeth I studied, he effectively avoided the threat of creative persecution. In the eighteenth century, however, the subject of a political history was ripe for opera seria—and librettist Nicola Francesco Haym (1678-1729) created Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Georg Frederic Händel (1685-1759) for the Royal Academy of Music in 1724 during the composer’s tenure at the English court. It was a relatively successful work, and one of Händel’s more (if not most) well known Italian operas to date.

Her presence may be more pertinent in the related Shakespearean tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra, but in Händel’s opera, Cleopatra’s affairs are everything but ignored. In this aria, she admires the young, handsome Julius Caesar, lamenting their never to be love, as she’s far past her courting years:

Fünf Lieder WoO post. 22 (Ophelia-Lieder)

The German translations of many of Shakespeare’s plays appeared in the early 19th century, sparked by Schlegel-Tieck’s publication. Among other composers to set Shakespeare’s works, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) approached the setting of Ophelia’s songs in a really interesting way by honouring the sing-song style of the text and folly and falter of rhythm in her speeches, and too had a particular choice of harmonic language. He uses very basic piano accompaniment that resembles a kind of pastorale Renaissance style—in the first and second songs, simpler, lute-like voicings and strophic melodies in the soprano. In the third setting, “Auf Morgen its Sankt Valentin’s Tag,” we hear an off-kiltered compound duple meter that almost feels like the pillars of a village dance. In the fourth and fifth songs, Brahms alludes to a sort of chorale or hymn form, but more notably uses a mixture of modes (variations of scales) between A-flat major and its relative minor key of F. This simple relationship ties together more antiquated musical forms and the Romantic style, which nineteenth-century composers defined with manipulations of harmony and tonal center.

The english translation given is not a direct interpretation of the German lyrics, rather the original text from Hamlet Act IV scene v, lines 23-26, 29-33, 48-55, 165-187, and 190-201, respectively.

“Je veux vivre,” from Roméo et Juliette

The stage of the French grand opera is the perfect setting for the melancholic story of the teenage star-crossed lovers. After his major success, Faust, Charles Gounod (1818-1893) and his librettists, Jules Barbier (1825-1901) and Michel Carré (1821-1872) premiered the opera at the Théâtre Lyrique Impérial du Châtelet, Paris in April 1859, and it rose to great success with over three hundred performances in the first eight years of its lifetime.

Juliette’s aria is a testament to teenage life and fleeting crushes. The viennese waltz setting is fitting for the scene in Act I, when all of the characters are meeting at the Capulet estate for her birthday. Juliette’s whimsy enchants Roméo, and all present. The foreshadowing in the lyrics is exquisite.

“Orpheus with his lute”

Oddly enough, the fervent revival of Shakespeare in the nineteenth century continued well into the following years—as theatres continued to perform his work, it was picked up and circulated. British composers especially, such as Roger Quilter, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Benjamin Britten, among others, sought to honour and redefine their nation’s artistic heritage in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was influenced heavily by Tudor music and brought elements of English folk song into his operas, ballets, religious music, and symphonies. “Orpheus with his lute” is an example of a neo-classical (twentieth century interpretations of Classical or eighteenth century compositional styles) reimagining of Patience’s song from Act III scene I of Henry VIII. The 1901 score is the first of two settings by Williams of the same text.

“Falling in love with love” from Boys from Syracuse

Boys from Syracuse is a 1938 musical by Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and Lorenz Hart (1895-1943) with book by George Abbott (1887-1995) based on A Comedy of Errors. Adriana sings this tune in Act I, while recanting the stories of her romance with her husband to her sewing circle. Love, although promising, isn’t always as it seems. Rodgers used the dance form, the waltz in particular, to set the ‘mood’ of romance and anticipatory or longing emotions. In the age of Musical Theatre composition, the use of these subliminal musical association works to create further drama and ironic or comedic juxtaposition.

The collaboration between Rodgers and Hart was short-lived, and the pair had a falling out—not romantically, but the song holds as a testament perhaps not only to Adriana’s woes, but too their professional relationship.

“The Star Crossed Lovers”(“Pretty Girl”)

“Star Crossed Lovers” is a track on the album Such Sweet Thunder by Duke Ellington and his orchestra, released by Columbia records in 1957. The album is a twelve-part instrumental suite based on Shakespeare’s works, inspired by a visit to a Festival happening at the same time as their Stratford, Ontario performance by the band leader, Duke Ellington (1899-1974), and his arranger, Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967). The album was written in three weeks and performed the next year at the festival.

Interestingly enough, aside from the Morley piece, this is the only selection on the recital that doesn’t necessitate or originate from a gendered performance; rather, it can be interpreted by any singer, as long as it is addressed to the subject of the ballad, “pretty girl”. Strayhorn was an out member of the LGBTQ+ community, and in a small effort to display how not only musical styles but also social ideas changed, I wanted to include it (and this interpretation) on the program.

For full bibliographic references, or to see the project at large, visit symphonicshakespeare.tumblr.com

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Welcome to Symphonic Shakespeare!

I’m very excited to release this video,which essentially explains how my first research process went about--consulting experts in my field (locally). I knew all three of these theatre professionals from my prior experience in education and the arts and knew that they would have an invaluable and accessible insight to my inquiry--it turns out what I was wondering about has been a subject of discussion and interpretation amongst the communities that realise Shakespeare productions.

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Matthew Belopavlovich on Shakespeare and Music

In this interview series, I talk to theatre professionals–actors, pedagogues, and scholars–to determine their experiences with music in the context of Shakespeare (or rather, Shakespeare in the context of music). Matthew is an instructor, actor, and director at my local conservatory.

He will be directing a Shakespeare Intensive for actors this summer. 

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David Mann on Shakespeare & Music

In this interview series, I talk to theatre professionals--actors, pedagogues, and scholars--to determine their experiences with music in the context of Shakespeare (or rather, Shakespeare in the context of music). This interview, with David Mann, an actor and instructor, is the first of the series, and of my research project in general.

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You’re hereby invited to my research presentation!

Click the link to go to the event page and RSVP.

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Symphonic Shakespeare is a research project.

How has Shakespeare, a nearly five-centuries-old poet with little to no remaining biographical information, let alone biological descendants, survived through his works to the present day?

Certainly his acclaim throughout the years has established him as an important literary, dramatic, and linguistic figure. But so too is he musical--to attest to that statement, a volume of works, the magnitude of which had not been seen before, were composed in the 19th century and Romantic era, adding Opera, Symphony, and Chamber and solo works to the Shakespearean performance repertoire. 

This research project aims to address the cultural phenomenon of appreciation of and inspiration by the Elizabethan playwright, and its impact on the music of the time, as well as that moving forward. Follow for research tidbits!

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Monica Cross on Shakespeare and Music