but whose music should not, by any means, be remembered." Kind oblivion must have enveloped them, had they not chosen Shakespeare as the medium by means of which they expressed their musical ideas, and thus borrowed a small portion of his immortality. In attempting to give some account of musical illustrations to Shakespeare's plays, one is, at the outset, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. When it is discovered that many of the songs have been set to music between twenty and thirty times by composers of all grades of excellence, a minute description of each and all becomes impossible. A recent publication of the New Shakspere Society of Lention contains the most complete catalogue as yet made of Shakespeare settings. This and Roffe's Handbook of Shakespeare Music, from which the former has drawn largely, together with a few scattered magazine articles, seem to be about all that has been written on the subject... In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the art of musical composition in England was in a flourishing condition. The madrigal had become a favorite form of vocal music, being the outcome of the Italian and Flemish schools. No better description of it can be given than in the quaint language of Thomas Morley : As for the musicke, it is next unto the motet, the most artificiall, and to men of understanding the most delightful. If, therefore, you will compose in this kind, you must possesse yourselfe with an amorous humor (for in no composition shall you prove admirable except you put on and possesse your selfe wholy with that vaine wherein you compose), so that you must in your musicke be wauering like the wind, sometime wanton, somietime drooping, sometime grave and staide, otherwhile effeminat, you may maintaine points and reuert to them, use triplaes, and shew the uttermost of your variety, and the more variety you shew the better shall you please. This was a much more varied and delightful form of composition than the canons, rounds or catches which had been, since the time of Henry III., the favorite forms of musical recreation; nor were they ousted by the more melodious madrigal. The catch continued long a "A List of all the Songs and Passages in Shakespeare that have been set to music," compiled by J. Greenhill, the Rev. W. A. Harrison, and F. J. Furnivall. popular form. It was easy to learn from the fact that it consisted of one continuous melody, not written in score, the catch being that each singer must take up or catch on to his part in time. Later, an improvement was made; words were chosen so constructed that by ingenious mispronunciation and cross readings given to the different voices, very ludicrous effects were produced. This element of buffoonery, no doubt, enhanced the value of the catch much to the ordinary mind. Many were the collections of catches published at that time and on through the reign of Charles II., when the words became such, to suit the manners of the times, that the singing of them to-day may not be suffered. They used to appear with the taking title, "Catch that catch can," and were sung by clubs formed for the purpose, or, indeed, by any company of friends bent on enjoying themselves. Who has not heard Sir Toby exclaim-" But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do And the night owl is roused in good earnest when Sir Toby and his two jolly companions sing— Which is the properest day to drink, to the rollicking tune of Dr. Arne, or that other one equally jolly— Christmas comes but once a year, So let's be merry. The words of these catches are not in Shakespeare's text, this being one of the many instances in which songs with musical settings, not incorporated in the play, have been introduced; either from an entirely foreign source, or from other parts of Shakespeare. Among the first of English composers to make musical settings to Shakespeare's poetry was Thomas Morley, the celebrated composer of madrigals. Born about the middle of the sixteenth century, in 1600, he published The first Booke of Aires or Little short Songs, to sing and play to the lute with the base viol. This contained the pages song in As You Like It, sung to Touchstone and Audrey. "It was a lover and his lass," a quaint, pretty little song, with the delightful naiveté of those ancient melodies which seems exactly suited to the words. It is one of the earliest examples of original Shakespeare music that has come down to us. 1. It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, with a ho, with a hey, non-ny no, and a hey, non-ny no- ni no; That o'er the green corn-fields did pass in spring-time, in spring-time in spring-time, The only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding a ding, Hey ding a ding a ding, Hey ding a ding, ading, Sweet lovers love the spring etc. There is, however, a still older melody, which was sung to the "Willow Song" in Othello, composed by one of the forgotten ones. Desdemona says her mother's maid, Barbara, who was in love, " had a song of 'Willough,' an old thing t'was; but it expressed her fortune." This song is found in Dallis Manuscript Lute Book, with the title," All a Greane Willow," the date being 1583. The song sung by Desdemona is an adaptation of this ancient ballad, "The Poore Soule," being metamorphosed from a deserted swain to a disconsolate maid. There are numerous variations of this ballad found in old manuscript books, of which the most interesting, perhaps, is one mentioned by Collier; some of the stanzas of which end with the refrain, "For all the green wyllow is my garland," by old John Heywood. The following is the old "Willow Song," with the original words, of which Dr. Furness, in his happy way says: "However lovely the melody, its charm is heightened by the knowledge that its plaintive notes once 'sighed along' the traverses of the Globe theatre." p Very sad. 1. A poor soul sat sigh-ing by a syc a-more tree, Sing wil-low, willow, wil- low, With his hand in his bosom, and his head up - on his knee, Oh! wil-low, wil-low, wil-low, wil- low, Oh! wil-low, wil-low, willow, willow, my gar - land shall be, Sing all a green wil - low, wil-low, willow, willow, Ah me, the green wil-low my garland shall be. He sighed in his singing and made a great moan, Sing willow, etc. "I am dead to all pleasure, my true love she is gone," The mute bird sat by him, made tame by his moans, Sing willow, etc. The true tears fell from him and melted the stones, Oh! willow, etc. Come, all you forsaken, and mourne you with me, Who speaks of a false love, mine's falser than she, Oh! willow, etc. Another setting of these words as they occur in Shakespeare, than which there is none more lovely, is that of England's modern Shakespeare musician, Sir Arthur Sullivan, in which the plaintive refrain. "Oh willow, willow, willow!" seems to contain the pent-up tears of a sorrow-laden soul. Besides the settings of the page's song already mentioned, there are, at least, eighteen others; one, written in the eighteenth century by R. J. S. Stevens. The others are all written in the nineteenth century by such well-known composers as William Linley, who wrote a duet to these words; Sir Henry Bishop, a soprano solo, afterwards introduced in the operatized version of the Comedy of Errors; G. A. Macfarren, a part song and several others well known to glee-singers. Another madrigal writer of the time of Queen Elizabeth was John Dowland, a lutenist, and one of the best known musicians of his time. But, although he published numerous "Bookes of Songes and Ayres," he does not seem to have written to Shakespeare's words: strange, too, is it, for is he not immortalized in one of the sonnets ? If music and sweet poetry agree, As they must needs, the sister and the brother, Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Comparatively few settings of Shakespeare date back to the first part of the seventeenth century. Although madrigal and catchsinging were cultivated by all, and the man who could not read a part at sight was considered to have neglected a very important item of his education; still, stage music, as well as stage machinery and scene painting, was in a very crude state. Opera, properly so called, was unknown until Shakespeare's comedies, especially the Tempest, Midsummer-Night's Dream, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, in which the music forms so much an integral part of the play, that they partake of the nature of an opera; may be said to have furnished the connecting link between the old-fashioned miracle plays, with occasional introductions of music, and the opera in its fully developed form; in which, by the way, Cupid and the Furies too often disport themselves in inappropriate roulades and trills, or else stalk about in monotonous recitative. Probably, in those early days, the words were merely set to popular songs, and Ophelia and Desdemona, as well as Ariel and Titania, sang the common street ditties of the time. Oh happy, happy ditties! |