Chapter III: Part 3

Very few composers have had the temerity to lay hands on _King Lear_. With the notable exception of Berlioz, no composer of the first rank seems to have touched it. At one time Verdi thought very seriously of making it the subject of an opera, and it is much to be regretted that the project was never carried out. With Boito as librettist, what a work Verdi might have turned out in his golden old age!

+Berlioz+ began his _Roi Lear_ overture at Nice while he was holding the Grand Prix de Rome, but was stopped by the King of Sardinia's police as a spy. The composer's habit of writing music without a piano did not please them at all; so he was sent for and interrogated by the chief of the secret police.

"You wander about with a book in your hands; are you making plans?"

"Yes, the plan of an overture to _King Lear_."

"Who is this King Lear?"

"A wretched old English king," etc.

"You cannot possibly compose wandering about the beach with only a pencil and paper and no piano; so tell me where you wish to go, and your passports shall be made out."

"Then I will go back to Rome, and, by your leave, continue to compose without a piano."

Berlioz finished the overture in May 1831, but it was years before it made any success, and it has never been popular in France.

Some years afterwards Berlioz was invited to conduct a {51} concert of his works at Loewenberg for the Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. At the rehearsal the orchestra played the score "with such spirit, smoothness, and precision that I said to myself in amazement, not having heard the piece for ten or twelve years, 'It is tremendous; can I really have written it?'" I am quoting from Berlioz's autobiography.

The overture begins _andante_ with a bold theme for basses, and the whole of the opening is composed in a much more simple manner than one is accustomed to expect from Berlioz. A beautiful cantabile theme soon appears on the oboe, the opening is repeated _fortissimo_, and then comes the real Berlioz. This episode is fiery and _agitato_, leading on to the beautiful Cordelia music. The rest of the work is very long and complicated, but no new melodies are introduced. There are no labels; each hearer must read his own meaning into it; but by keeping the idea of Lear in one's mind it is not difficult to get a very shrewd notion of what the composer is driving at.

+Konradin Kreutzer+ composed an opera on this tragedy entitled _Cordelia_. It is in one act, the libretto by P. Wolff. It was first produced at Donaueschingen in 1819. The composer was born at Baden in 1780, and was a prolific writer. The only number I can find is the overture, which is an ordinary straightforward composition, that suggests Cordelia just as much as it would Julius Caesar or Charlie Chaplin; I cannot understand why such music should ever be written.

In the _Athenaeum_ of June 8, 1912, occurs the following passage:--

"According to _Le Menestrel_, a complete libretto of _King Lear_ in +Verdi's+ handwriting has been discovered among his papers. This confirms the report that he had intended to write an opera on the subject."

_Antonio Bazzini_, the eminent violinist, composed a fine concert overture to _King Lear_, which was performed {52} twice at the Crystal Palace--in 1877 and 1880. It is really more of a symphonic poem than an overture, but it has no definite programme. Most of the work is very sombre and grim, as befitting its title. I have rarely seen a more restless work from the point of view of _tempo_, and its tonality is constantly changing. It is not in the least the kind of work one would expect from the composer of the popular "Ronde des Lutins" for violin, which is the only piece of his generally known here; but Bazzini was really a serious-minded composer, and was Professor of Composition in, and subsequently Director of, the famous Conservatoire of Milan. This overture is one of his mature works, and, though the themes are obviously of Italian origin, the development of them shows signs of German influence. The whole work is very interesting and uncommon.

+Felix Weingartner+, whose symphonic poem _King Lear_ is, after Berlioz's overture, the most important work on this subject, was born at Zara (Dalmatia) in 1863, and is one of the most distinguished of living conductors. The score was published in 1897, and performed in England at the London Musical Festival on May 2, 1902. The composer, in his own account of the work, says that it is not to be regarded as depicting the march of events as they occur in the drama (after the manner of programme music), its form being designed rather on the lines of early examples of the overture. The poem opens with a broad _fortissimo_ theme, showing the King in his pomp and state. This is followed by a crawling theme, signifying the malignant attitude of many at the Court. These two subjects struggle together, with a third, the love theme, hovering over all. The _motif_ of the King in his glory is repeated, but this time the evil influence music gets the better of it. A beautiful theme follows--Cordelia; but the King does not understand it, and soon Lear curses his daughter in a fine dramatic passage. This section is succeeded by a terrific storm, with thunder and lightning; the King's theme is {53} played in a wildly contorted form to show that he has become mad. The beautiful Cordelia music now comes to comfort him, and the two are reconciled, but their happiness does not last long. The work ends most tragically. The whole is a very reverent and masterly attempt on the part of a first-rate musician to set down in musical notation the effect of this stupendous tragedy on a finely-balanced brain.

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MACBETH

Of the tragedies, _Macbeth_, for some strange reason, is more associated with incidental music than any of the others. "The celebrated music introduced into the tragedy of _Macbeth_, commonly attributed to +Matthew Locke+," as Novello describes it in his edition, is associated in the minds of a great number of people with Shakespeare's play. I have known the work since I was a child. It used to be very popular at village and school breaking-up concerts. I never could understand its village popularity, but I know boys liked some of the strong words in it, and sang them with great gusto. It was sung in nearly all stage productions until about twenty years ago, and is very much missed by local choristers when not performed with the piece on tour. I remember how very disappointed the local chorus-master was to find that Sir Frank Benson was not using it in his later years. The chorus-master thought its absence would spoil the whole play. I have been through the text of Davenant's version, to which Locke wrote the music, and can discover only four consecutive lines and some odd words of Shakespeare's in the whole work. How it persisted through all those years is a great mystery. The music is not even interesting. The four lines immortalised are:--

Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.

For many years this music was falsely attributed to Purcell, but musical historians have finally cleared Purcell of all {55} connection with it; though long ago he got even with Locke by writing an elegy on his death. Daniel Purcell, uncle of Henry, also wrote some _Macbeth_ music.

+John Eccles+ wrote music for a revival at Drury Lane in 1696; and +Richard Leveridge+, composer of "The Roast Beef of Old England" (a song which should be popular if revived now) and "All in the Downs," also wrote music for the second act in 1708.

To come to more modern times, +Sullivan's+ music is perhaps the best. Composed for Sir Henry Irving's great production at the Lyceum, it was an instant success. The overture, a very elaborate work, is often done on concert platforms. The whole of the music is most effective, and perfectly suited to the play. Subsequently, Sir Henry gave readings of the play on tour with Ellen Terry, for which they travelled a full band of sixty performers for Sullivan's music.

+Michael Balling+, one time musical director for Sir Frank Benson, and subsequently for Cosima Wagner at Bayreuth, where he conducted _The Ring_ and _Parsival_, composed some very clever music for his old chief's production, very modern in feeling and permeated with Scottish atmosphere: the Witch music being very grim and mysterious, and in the cauldron scene very clearly bringing in a suggestion of Locke's "Mingle, mingle." The Banquet music (strings only) is bagpipey, and the marches for Macbeth and Macduff are stirring and in strong contrast, while there is fine battle music for the close. Unfortunately, he wrote no overture or _entr'actes_.

Several operas have been founded on this theme, the most notable being +Verdi's+ _Macbetto_, produced on March 17, 1847, at the Pergola, Florence. Unfortunately, Verdi was not so lucky in his librettist as he was in the cases of {56} _Otello_ and _Falstaff_, when he had the invaluable assistance of Arrigo Boito, perhaps the greatest librettist who ever lived, with the exception of Wagner. Piave's book is not very inspiring. The opera was never a success. Verdi could not see Macbeth as a tenor, and bravely made him a dramatic baritone. The Italian could not understand a grand opera in which the hero was not a tenor; and the only tenor, Macduff, comes on late in the evening. It is a great pity, as there is much fine music in the work, though very little of Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ gets through. The very Italian singing and dancing witches seem out of place on a blasted heath, and the ballet of Scottish retainers savours of a warmer clime than that of the North of Scotland. Still, the work should be revived.

+Hippolyte Andre Jean Baptiste Chelard+ was born in Paris in 1789, and subsequently won the Grand Prix de Rome. He was one of those Frenchmen, like Berlioz later, whose music was thought little of in Paris but was much admired in Munich and London. The adaptation of this play for the French lyric stage was not suitable, especially at the Opera House, where the action and words are the most important things to the public; and Chelard found that his harmonies, simple enough to our modern ears, were too complex for the Parisian audience. He left Paris and went to Munich, where he revised the whole opera most carefully, and made a great success of it; the result being that he became Court Capellmeister and dedicated the score to the Bavarian King, his patron. The rest of his life he divided between failure in Paris and success abroad, again very like his so much greater compatriot, Hector Berlioz. In this opera, for the first time, so far as I know, the witches are given names--Elsie, Nona, and Groem. I think the last a good name for a witch, but I should not dream of calling Shakespeare's first or second witch Elsie or Nona. I don't think Rouget de Lisle, the librettist, better known as the poet and composer of the "Marseillaise," ought to have done this. The opera is in three acts, and opens with the {57} conventional overture of the period--as composed by second-rate musicians, quite harmless; but one expects something more from a _Macbeth_ overture. The Witches have some effective trios, some of them unaccompanied; and one of their motives was used by Liszt, who knew Chelard at Weimar, and taken from Liszt by Wagner for use in the _Walkuere_. It comes quite as a surprise in its original place in this _Macbeth_. _Macbeth's_ march is fine and sombre, and the ballet music is quite exciting. One number is marked _tempo d' inglese_, though why a Franco-Scottish dance, produced in Germany, should be in English time I cannot understand. The choruses are broadly written, and the music, though mostly very florid, is often dramatic. There is a tremendously difficult and florid song for mezzo-soprano in the third act for a character called Moina, a friend of Lady Macbeth, and the prelude to this act is a long duet-cadenza for harp and flute. It has nothing to do with the plot, and must have been put in to please two friends who were excellent players or had valuable patrons. The librettist does not stick too closely to Shakespeare's story; in fact, he gives Duncan a daughter, the Moina just mentioned, and introduces the Sleep-walking scene before Duncan's death. When the opera was performed in London in 1832, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient, for so long Wagner's favourite singer, actress, and companion, sang the part of Lady Macbeth.

An amusing story is told of Chelard's _Macbeth_ by FitzGerald, Tenderer into English verse of the _Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_. In one of his letters to the celebrated actress, Fanny Kemble, niece of John Philip of that name, he writes: "You may know there is a French opera of _Macbeth_, by Chelard. This was being played at the Dublin theatre--Viardot, I think, the heroine. However that may be, the curtain drew up for the Sleep-walking scene; Doctor and Nurse were there, while a long mysterious symphony went on--till a voice from the gallery called out to the leader of the band, Levey--'Whist, Lavy, my dear--tell us now--is it a boy or a girl?'"

{58}

Surely the world's operatic tragedy is that +Beethoven+ never completed his _Macbeth_. He composed sketches for an overture and chorus to libretto by J. von Collin, who also, as we have seen, wrote the play _Coriolan_, which inspired one of Beethoven's greatest overtures.

+Wilhelm Taubert's+ opera _Macbeth_ was produced in Berlin in 1857, libretto by F. Eggers. It is in five acts, and begins with an overture in Scoto-German style. The curtain rises on the blasted heath, the three witches, two sopranos and one alto, singing in a very spirited manner. Macbeth enters, and the music closely follows the original plot. The second scene is in Macbeth's castle at Inverness, Lady Macbeth being discovered alone, having received her husband's letter. This is really very dramatic music; and when a servant announces that Duncan is coming that very night, Taubert gives one a fine thrill. Duncan enters and is heartily cheered by Macbeth's retainers, and all exit save Macbeth and his lady, who soon make arrangements for King Duncan's long sleep. The act ends _pianissimo_ in a sombre manner. In the second act there is much festal music, a great procession of bards playing harps, and much singing of "Hail, Macbeth, hail!" Now comes a Scoto-German characteristic dance, towards the end of which Macbeth hears from the murderer that Banquo is dead, but that his son has escaped. The music gets louder and wilder at the end of this dialogue, and the dance finishes with great abandon.

Macbeth summons his guests to the banquet, and Macduff (tenor), with harp, sings a song in praise of Scotland and Macbeth, the chorus joining in heartily. At the end of the song Banquo's ghost appears and spoils Macbeth's party. This act also ends _piano_, Lady Macbeth taking a very remorseful Macbeth to have a nice quiet rest.

The third act takes place in the Witches' cave. Hecate (tenor) and chorus are with the Witches. Macbeth enters and is told about Birnam Wood. The music here is very impressive. The Witches raise up the ghosts of the eight {59} kings, and they pass Macbeth to a sort of funeral march; this also is very striking. The scene ends with a terrific hubbub, which gradually dies away, the curtain rising on Birnam Wood and a male chorus singing "O Scotland, poor fatherland, how has fate treated you!" It is a very sentimental bit of work, and must often draw tears; but I don't think real Scotsmen would be caring about it. After this sad opening we are prepared for Macduff's entrance. He is full of the news of the murder of his wife and children, and is very vocal about it. The chorus sympathise, and the act closes by Malcolm, Fleance, Macduff, and male chorus vowing vengeance on Macbeth. The third act begins with the Sleep-walking scene. The doctor and lady-in-waiting are there, and presently Lady Macbeth enters, and, keeping closely to the original text, the act finishes again _pianissimo_. The scene of the last act is in a chamber near Dunsinane. A harper sings a good imitation of a Scottish song, and then the Wood of Birnam seems to move nearer and nearer. Lady Macbeth appears in the last scene of all, and sings a very dramatic aria, welcoming the advent of the Birnam Wood, and firmly believing in the immortality of Macbeth; but Macduff kills him, and all he says to his wife is "Farewell, my wife, Eternal sleep is welcome." The Witches make a short appearance here, singing "He had the crown, we have the King," and Malcolm is crowned; and the chorus spread themselves, hailing their new King. By this time they must have become accustomed to hailing new kings. Already they have sung in praise of Duncan and Macbeth, and now, quite easily, they adapt their vocal transports to Malcolm, and are very Scoto-Germanic in their efforts. Still, the opera has very good points, and should not die.

The latest opera on this subject is the gigantic lyric drama in a prologue and three acts, each act having two scenes, by +Ernest Bloch+, poem by Edmond Fleg, after Shakespeare.

This work was produced at the Opera Comique, Paris, {60} 1910, under the direction of Albert Carre. I can find nothing about the composer in any dictionary of music, but, judging from the score, he is a modern of moderns. The work is planned on an heroic scale, and is appallingly difficult to perform, the time and key changing, sometimes every bar, during long passages: moreover, the composer seems very fond of putting in an odd five-four bar unexpectedly. The opera opens with a prelude, depicting the blasted heath, and the witches enter one by one. They are, severally, soprano, mezzo, and contralto. During their trio distant drums and muted trumpet are heard announcing the near presence of Macbeth, Banquo, and the army. They gradually get nearer, and finally, with a burst of grim, significant music, the mortals enter to three horrible chords and a sinister figure in the bass. At the words, "Glamis, and thane of Cawdor! The greatest is behind," the orchestra plays a solemn theme curiously reminiscent of the Valhalla _motif_ in Wagner's _Ring_. So ends the prologue; the orchestra conveys one to Macbeth's castle, and the curtain rises just as he has finished telling Lady Macbeth about his interview with the three witches on the heath. This ingenious device saves the time generally used in the latter scene, and also saves the audience hearing Macbeth's account of his meeting with the Witches, which they have already heard. Further, it allows Macbeth to be present when the servant announces the advent of King Duncan, which makes a strong dramatic point, and is admirably emphasised by the fine Duncan theme ringing out in the brass. It would take hundreds of pages to explain in detail this enormous and complicated work, so I will just touch on a few points of outstanding interest. Duncan's entrance is finely managed, and his dignified thanks and praise of Macbeth and his lady are calmly and peacefully set, in great contrast to all that has gone before. In the duet (Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) which follows, the composer emphasises the scorn of the lady for her undecided husband, and the passage, "I have nourished children at my breast, and I know it is sweet," has a {61} concentrated bitterness in it that is not often found in music. A very elaborate and beautiful orchestral scene-change interlude, founded on the Duncan theme, quiet and very calm, brings us to a court in Macbeth's castle. It is moonlight, and all is still until Macbeth begins the dagger soliloquy, which is set with great force. The Porter's song is very elaborate, and the composer has an explanation, in a footnote to the score, in which he says: "The character of the song of the Porter is this:--The Porter is drunk. He really hears the knocking. He listens, but his troubled brain confuses reality and fiction, and the hammering blows awaken in him the memory of a familiar song. In each verse you get a suggestion of this old song, and only at the last verse he realises that he must open the door." The situation is held with great intensity. The song is long; there are three verses, each richly varied, and I should think it is one of the most difficult songs to sing ever written. A great _ensemble_ number, for principals and chorus, very dramatic and brilliantly written technically, nearly finishes the act; but by a happy device the crowd rush into the King's chamber, leaving the stage empty save for an old man. The music fades away, the great bell continues to toll, and the ancient sings, very quietly, "I can recall all that has happened for seventy years; I have seen terrible hours and strange things, but I have never seen a night comparable to this night." (I translate roughly.) Curtain falls slowly.

The second act opens in Macbeth's castle, himself as King. The opening orchestral introduction is very regal, but Macbeth's subsequent soliloquy shows how doubtful he is of himself. A fine series of fanfares brings on Lennox and his followers to the banquet. The music for the appearance of Banquo is most suggestive; in fact, in suiting the music to the words or situation Bloch is never at fault. The last Witch scene, with the procession of kings, is awe-inspiring, as is Lady Macbeth's sleep-walking scene and Macbeth's "to-morrow and to-morrow" monologue. The tragic feeling never ceases until the very death of Macbeth, when the curtain falls slowly.

{62}

This is, I know, a very inadequate description of a most tragic opera, but I have no more space. There are no separate numbers, save the Porter's song, which could be detached from the rest of the work. The opera must be taken as an entity or not at all. There are no attempts at sustained, beautiful melody; everything is sacrificed to the drama. There are no effective bits from a singer's point of view, and Mr Arthur Godfrey would have some difficulty in writing a really popular selection founded on this work. For a perfect performance, wonderful acting, singing, orchestral playing, and _mise-en-scene_ are absolutely essential. It requires months of the most careful rehearsal, but the result would justify all the time and labour spent over it. It should be a great privilege to take the smallest part in a performance of such a stupendous tragedy.

It is the general custom of amateurs to sneer at +Spohr+. True, he was the finest classical violinist of his time, but that cannot account for the general abuse from which he suffers: there must be something else. The something else seems to me to be the curious foresight he had with regard to Richard Wagner's works. When no one, save Liszt, would hear them or of them, dear old-fashioned classical Spohr risked his whole reputation to produce operas by this young art--and practical--revolutionary at his theatre at Cassel. There was something very splendid about him. Among the enormous quantity of music he has written there is one overture, "Macbeth," to which I wish to draw attention; it is short, it is conventional, but there is a lot of the real feeling of _Macbeth_ in it. I don't say for an instant that this is an epic, but it is a very excellent piece of work and quite worthy of the great man, if not great composer, who devised it.

In some editions of +Robert Schumann's+ pianoforte works the "Novelette," op. 21, No. 3, is headed with these words from _Macbeth_: "When shall we three meet again?" They certainly fit in with the first phrase of the movement, {63} and the whole sounds very like a witches' dance, but there is no mention of the words in Peters' edition. I hope it is true, as that gives us another piece of Schumann's Shakespearian music in addition to the _Julius Caesar_ overture and the last Clown's song from _Twelfth Night_.

+Raff's+ "Macbeth" overture is quite one of his most successful works. It opens with a dance of the Witches, mostly for flute and piccolo at first, but getting very wild later; then there is a sort of dialogue between Macbeth (wood wind and horns) and Witches (their own dance). These themes are developed with considerable skill, and a new one (Lady Macbeth) is added, as are some odd little bits of a sort of Scottish character. There is fine fight-music near the end, and the final triumph of Macduff is celebrated with a very cheerful noise. This overture would make an admirable opening for an elaborate stage performance of _Macbeth_.

+Henry Hugo Pierson+ was an English composer, born at Oxford, 1815, but is still unknown to the majority of his fellow-countrymen. After leaving Cambridge he studied in Germany, where he became very intimate with Mendelssohn. Meyerbeer, Spohr, and Schumann were all his friends and admirers; and in 1844 he succeeded Sir Henry Bishop as Professor of Music at Edinburgh, but very soon resigned, and settled down in Germany, marrying a German literary lady, Caroline Leonhardt. The inordinate Mendelssohn-worship of his day rendered England a difficult home for a modern English composer: so he changed the spelling of his name from Pearson to Pierson, settled down in his adopted country, and died at Leipsic, January 18, 1873.

His symphonic poem, "Macbeth," op. 51, was once performed at the Crystal Palace concerts, but has been very thoroughly neglected since. It is real modern programme music, and scored for a very large orchestra, including a solo part for the cornet-a-pistons and a military drum. The symphonic poem opens at Act ii., Scene 2, and is headed {64} with the words, "Hours dreadful and strange things." The music is very slow and mysterious, but works up to a climax on the words of the Witches, "Fair is foul and foul is fair." Then comes, very _piano_, "The March of the Scottish Army"--a most characteristic piece, the tune on the high wood wind, drones on the bassoons, and great use made of the military drum. This works up to a tremendous _fortissimo_, and dies away mysteriously before Banquo's words:--

What are these,
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th' inhabitants o' th' earth,
And yet are on't?

A curious and interesting effect is here made by the tenor trombone, clarinet, and cornet taking the parts of the three witches, and playing the themes that fit what the Witches are supposed to speak. I mean the three "All hail" speeches. The orchestration is full of sinister mystery here; but, on Macbeth's words, "Two truths are told As happy prologue to the swelling act Of the imperial theme," the music becomes, for a time, triumphant, though very wild, and breaks off suddenly for a Lady Macbeth scene. She is reading Macbeth's letter, and these words are printed in the score: "This have I thought good to deliver thee. Lay it to thy heart, and fare thee well." The subjects here used are the Witches' prophetic theme and a passionate Lady Macbeth one. All the music in this section is highly emotional, dramatic, and brilliantly clever. On Macbeth's words, "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly," a gruesome little passage for strings and bassoons heralds the King's feast music, consisting of curious disjointed wood-wind passages, till Macbeth's words, "Is this a dagger which I see before me?", when the music seems to drive him to the murder. After the words, "Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell," there are two intensely dramatic bars; and then, _pianissimo_, is heard the Witches' prophetic _motif_ on the cornet and horn--a fine {65} bit of musical word-painting. Now comes the longest episode in the work, a magnificent Witches' dance, the composer employing nearly every resource of the modern orchestra. Then, in the distance, is heard the march of the English army, very stirring and martial. At the end of this passage, Macbeth says: "It's ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments." Here a great stirring is made in the orchestra, and a cry (violin solo) is heard:--

_Macbeth_: Wherefore was that cry?
_Seyton_: The Queen, my lord, is dead.

Very piteous and poignant music is used in this passage, broken in upon by the strains of battle. At the words, "Blow, wind, come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back," the music dies down for the familiar dialogue between Macbeth and Macduff concerning the gynaecological manner of the latter's birth, and a few more bars of fight music finish off the former. The sound dies down. The prophetic theme is heard very faintly on the trombone and finally on the horn; the music gets softer and slower, and so fades away.

I have written at special length about this composer, because it seems so strange that an English musician, a Harrow and Cambridge man, and a pupil of Attwood and Corfe, should have been so much in advance of his time and especially of his country. Born, as we saw, in 1815, he was only six years younger than Mendelssohn, and forty years old when Sir Henry Bishop died. He was four years younger than Liszt, and doubtless got the general idea of the symphonic poem form, or want of form, from the elder master. He was two years younger than Wagner, yet his earlier compositions are far in advance, musically, of Wagner's early work. It seems deplorable that this remarkable English composer should be so utterly ignored by his countrymen.

+Richard Strauss's+ magnificent Symphonic Poem on this theme must take a very high place in the musical {66} commentary on _Macbeth_. It is scored for the largest possible orchestra, and every known musical device in orchestration or harmony is to be found in this enormous and complicated score. The poem begins sombrely, but almost at once there breaks in a short fanfare, which occurs repeatedly throughout the work. Immediately after the fanfare the first subject is announced on the brass, and the whole work gets going. Strauss prints a short speech of Lady Macbeth's beginning, "Hie thee hither, that I may pour My spirits in thine ear; And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round." In the score the music here is marked "wildly _appassionato_," though _pianissimo_ (Strauss here uses the device of _tremolo_ strings playing on the bridge with great effect). Afterwards he introduces a long, broad, and very beautiful theme, the sort of theme which his detractors are always challenging him to write, and which he is always writing. Strauss gives no definite programme in his score, and it is up to anyone hearing it to make his own; but one could not go very far wrong. There is no need to describe the various developments, thematic and harmonic, which take place in the themes before the end of this work. It is long. Ninety pages of closely printed full score take some time to play, and a longer time to describe in detail: so I content myself with saying that anyone can get a fine, convincing picture of the life and death of Macbeth by hearing this work and not bothering whether a certain theme means Duncan, Bloody Child, Bleeding Sergeant, Macbeth, or Lady Macbeth.

{67}

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

+Wagner's+ one known contribution to Shakespearian music is his two-act opera, _Das Liebesverbot_, founded on _Measure for Measure_, and not, as so many people think, on _Love's Labour's Lost_. It is his second complete opera, and, for reasons I will explain later, was only once performed; now, seeing that the composer, according to some authorities, apparently destroyed all of it except a couple of numbers, it may never be done again. Wagner planned the libretto during the summer of 1834, while on holiday at Teplitz. He had lately heard Auber's _Masaniello_ at Leipsic, and was astonished at the effect of the striking scenes and rapid action of this opera. Could he not improve on Auber's music and produce an opera in which the action should be equally swift? He took _Measure for Measure_, changed the scene from Vienna to Sicily, "where a German governor, aghast at the incomprehensible laziness of its populace, attempts to carry out a puritanical reform and lamentably fails." (The words in quotation marks are taken from Wagner's article on this opera in volume vii. of his prose works, as with the other quotations that follow.)

The score of the opera was finished while the composer was musical director at the town theatre of Magdeburg, during the winter of 1835-36. Wagner had the right to claim a benefit performance, and, having an excellent troupe of singers at his disposal, decided to produce his opera at this benefit. "In spite of a royal subsidy and the intervention of a theatre committee, our worthy director was in a perennial state of bankruptcy," says Wagner, "and before the end of the season the most popular member of {68} the company, in spite of the unpunctuality of the payment of their salaries and the offer of better engagements elsewhere." Wagner modestly says: "It was only through my being a favourite with the whole opera company that I induced the singers not merely to stay until the end of March, but also to undertake the study of my opera, most exhausting in view of the briefness of the time." He only had ten days for all the various rehearsals. He says: "Notwithstanding that it had been quite impossible to drive them into a little conscious settledness of memory, I finally reckoned on a miracle to be wrought by my own acquired dexterity as conductor." This does not bear out the general opinion held in London as to Wagner's conducting. During his season as conductor of the Philharmonic in 1855, he had very severe opposition with which to contend, especially that of the musical critics Chorley and Davison (the _Athenaeum_ and the _Times_); but I should think Wagner was a pretty useful conductor, to judge from his article about conducting. Wagner kept the company together at rehearsal by singing all their parts and shouting the necessary action, forgetting that this could not be done at the public performance. At the general rehearsal Wagner's conducting, gesticulation, shouting, and prompting kept things together, but at the performance, before a crowded house, there was utter chaos.

Unfortunately, Wagner had allowed the manager, Herr Bethmann, to have the receipts of the _premiere_ as his benefit; and at the second performance, Wagner's benefit, there were few in the audience, and a free fight, amusingly described by him, was waged behind the scenes.

It takes Wagner six pages of closely printed prose to give a _resume_ of the plot, and it would be impossible in my present space to do more than comment on some of the changes. The Duke, who is the most indefatigable talker in Shakespeare's play, becomes a King, who never even appears. Angelo becomes a German Governor, who tries to foist German puritanism on the hot-blooded Sicilians. There is no moated grange for Mariana, who in Wagner's version is {69} a fellow-novice of Isabella. Neither King nor Duke ever appearing, Isabella marries Lucio--a strange alteration to make. Isabella, to save her brother Claudio, arranges an appointment with the German Governor at the Carnival (Wagner's idea), and sends Mariana instead. They are discovered, and the Governor expects to be executed for his ill-treatment of Mariana, when news is heard of the King's arrival in harbour. In Wagner's words, "Everyone decides to go in full carnival attire to greet the beloved prince, who surely will be pleased to see how ill the sour puritanism of the Germans becomes the heat of Sicily. The word goes round! Gay festivals delight him more than all the gloomy edicts. Frederick, with his newly married wife Mariana, has to head the procession; the novice, Isabella, lost to the cloister for ever, makes the second pair with Lucio." This is Wagner's ending, and anyone who knows the original text can get a fair idea of his alterations.

With the few, but very important, exceptions I have mentioned, he sticks fairly closely to Shakespeare's text. In regard to the troubles concerning the production, much has been amusingly written by Wagner. The police took offence at the title "Forbidden Love." The production was for the last week before Easter, when only serious pieces were performed. Wagner assured the magistrate that it was founded on a serious play by Shakespeare, and, not having read further than the title, the official passed the opera on condition that the title was changed to _The Novice of Palermo_. Wagner says: "In the Magdeburg performance, remarkably enough, I had nothing at all to suffer from the dubious character of my opera text; the story remained utterly unknown to the audience, on account of its thoroughly vague representation." Of his benefit performance the composer says: "Whether a few seats were filled at the commencement of the overture I can scarcely judge. About a quarter of an hour earlier the only people I could see in the stalls were my landlady and her husband, and, strange to say, a Polish Jew in full costume! I was hoping for an increase in the audience {70} notwithstanding, when suddenly the most unheard-of scenes took place in the wings. The husband of my primadonna (Isabella) had fallen upon the second tenor, a very pretty young man, who sang my 'Claudio,' and against whom the offended husband had long nursed a secret grudge. It seems that having convinced himself of the nature of the audience when he accompanied me to the curtain, the lady's husband deemed the longed-for hour arrived for taking vengeance on his wife's admirer without damage to the theatrical enterprise. Claudio was so badly cuffed and beaten by him that the unhappy wretch had to escape to the cloak-room with bleeding face. Isabella was told of it, rushed in despair at her raging husband, and received such blows from him that she fell into convulsions." There was a general free fight, all the company paying off old scores. The principals were unable to proceed with the performance, the manager made the usual speech about unforeseen obstacles, and the performance did not take place. This is the correct account of the exciting second and last performance, told almost in Wagner's own words, of the composer's only Shakespearian opera.

Of the music, Grove says the score is in the possession of the King of Bavaria at Munich. In the British Museum there is a copy of a carnival song and chorus, very bright and spirited, but with no trace of the later Wagner. There is also a "Carnival scene" for pianoforte, founded on motives from the opera, by Geo. Kirchner. Unfortunately, the first half of this fantasia is the song I have just noticed, with elaborate bravura passages for the piano, but the middle episode is much more like the real man. It is a fairly slow, melodious passage, full of interesting modulations, quite foreshadowing what the composer might do. If the rest of the work is up to this form, and if the score is really in Munich, I hope that it will be published, and performed with better luck than at Wagner's "benefit."

As there has been so little music composed for this play, I will give a short account of as many settings as I can find of the solitary lyric contained in it. Probably the {71} first setting of these words was by +Dr John Wilson+, born at Faversham, 1595, who is supposed to have sung Balthazar in _Much Ado About Nothing_, and other similar parts, and to have been mentioned by name in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays.

In this edition (1623) the stage direction runs, "Enter the Prince, Leonato, Claudio, and Jacke Wilson." This particular song is published in Playford's _Select Ayres and Dialogues_, published in 1659 for one, two, or three voices, to the theorbo-lute or bass-viol. The words are beautifully set to a quaint and pathetic air, and there is no verbal repetition. Dr Wilson adds the second verse, "Hide, O hide those hills of snow," by Fletcher, to make the song an ordinary length, without futile repetition.

The next setting is by +John Weldon+, pupil of Henry Purcell, born at Chichester, January 19, 1676, and educated at Eton. This song is interesting, but very florid, and the words are dreadfully ill-treated. Weldon only sets the verse attributed to Shakespeare. The music was on sale at "The Golden Harp and Hoboy" in Catherine Street. Our music-sellers do not call their shops by such pretty names now.

Next on our list comes +Johann Ernst Galliard+, happily named as a composer of theatre music, one of our earliest German "peaceful penetrators." Born at Zelle, Hanover, in 1687, he soon emigrated to England, where he successfully composed operas and much dramatic music, including this pretty little song, which was published in 1730. He was organist at Somerset House, and, I suppose, played the organ while the clerks filled in birth certificates and made out income-tax forms. He died in London in 1749.

+Thomas Chilcot+, composer of the next version of these words, was organist at Bath Abbey from 1733 until he died (1766). This song was published in 1745, and is a good example of the period, slightly florid, but very melodious, {72} with a charming accompaniment for stringed orchestra. It is a song that would repay careful study on the part of a high tenor. The second Fletcher verse is added in this version.

Of +Christopher Dixon+, the composer of the next setting, no mention is made in Grove's _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, and all that seems to be known of him is that he was called "of York," and some cantatas and songs of his are in the British Museum Library. This song, published in 1760, has a flowing, rather sad melody, and the second verse is again used.

A glee for male voices to these words was published about 1780. It was composed by either +Tommaso+ or +Giuseppe Giordani+, two composer-brothers--probably by the former, who was born at Naples in 1740 and migrated to Dublin in 1761, and wrote a great deal of music to English lyrics. This glee is a charming setting. The part-writing is always graceful, and often very ingenious, the inner parts melodious and interesting, and the whole effective. The composer has adapted this glee for mezzo-soprano solo with harpsichord accompaniment, and a very pretty song it makes.

+Jackson of Exeter+, as he was generally called, who wrote the celebrated church service known as Jackson in F, has set these words as a duet, with harpsichord accompaniment. The first verse only is taken, but the composer "rings the changes" on the words to such an unhappy extent that it makes quite a long number. Simple, melodious, and graceful, like nearly all of Jackson's secular music, it is not of much value as a serious setting of the words. Strangely enough, it is marked _allegro molto_, and, should this instruction be carried out literally, the effect would be very curious, taking the words into consideration. The composer was born at Exeter in 1730, and this duet was published in 1780. He was a {73} keen landscape painter, and imitated the style of his friend Gainsborough.

+W. Tindal+, whose setting was published in 1785, is not mentioned in Grove's _Dictionary_, and seems to have composed very little music. Six vocal pieces, of which this is No. 2, and eight English, Spanish, and Scottish ballads, one of which is a quaint setting of part of Hamlet's love-letter, "But never doubt I love," are all the compositions of his I can find. This duet is full of clever bits of imitation and good contrapuntal part-writing, and is melodious as well. Tindal also repeats the words almost _ad nauseam_, and only uses the first verse.

+Sir John Andrew Stevenson+, Mus.D., composed a glee on these words, which was published in 1795, but is of no great merit.

All that I can discover about +Luffman Atterbury+ is that he was a carpenter before he became a musician, was a musician-in-ordinary to George III., sang at the Handel commemoration of 1784, and died in 1796. He composed one beautiful piece of music, a round in three parts to the first verse of these words, which is really a perfect gem. The melody is simple and beautiful, the counter-melodies are equally taking, and the part-writing is very skilful. What more can one desire?

{74}

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Very few composers seem to have been attracted by _The Merchant of Venice_, though in the last act occurs one of the most beautiful eulogies of music in the world--the lines are too familiar to quote. I can only trace two operas on the subject. The first is _Il Mercante di Venezia_, by +Ciro Pinsuti+, produced at Bologna, November 8, 1873. It is in four acts, and the libretto is by G. T. Cimino, who very freely adapted Shakespeare's story. The work opens with a short overture-prelude of no very great importance, and the curtain rises on a street in Venice with chorus singing and gondolas floating by. Presently Portia appears in a gondola with the Prince of Morocco, playing the lute. She sings a greeting to Venice and its inhabitants, and exits with the Prince, who has not a singing or speaking part in the opera. But Bassanio and Antonio have observed her, and the former has fallen in love with her and tells Antonio about it. They exit, and the chorus, cunningly knowing that Shylock is about to enter, sings a derisive anti-Semitic song. Shylock tells them that he is following a really inoffensive industry, but no one seems to believe him. It would be wearisome to follow the plot too closely here. Shylock has a terrific aria about his daughter's elopement, after which the pound of flesh contract is made; and this scene is really impressive. Then there is a long trio between the three--Shylock, Antonio, and Bassanio--which makes a brilliant finale to the first act.

Act ii. opens at Belmont. Portia is wondering about her father's will, and she sings quite a long and florid song {75} about it. Bassanio enters and declares his love, and a long and impassioned duet follows, at the end of which is a lengthy fanfare, succeeded by the strangest caricature of Mendelssohn's Wedding March I have ever heard. The rhythm is exactly the same, and the melody and harmony are almost identical. This brings on poor Morocco again. The casket business, very much shortened, takes place, and Bassanio, as usual, wins. Then comes the March again, this time quite frankly called "Marcia Nuziale," and the act finishes with the bad news of Antonio and Bassanio's hurried exit to try to save him.

The third act discovers Shylock in a bad temper, still singing about his daughter's elopement. (Really Shakepeare's construction was not quite so bad as his adapters seem to think.) Afterwards a chorus of Jews comes on and sings hymns at Shylock. This seems to make him even more angry. The Trial scene is very much curtailed, and Portia "comes to the 'osses" very much more quickly than Shakespeare lets her.

The fourth and last act opens with a long and elaborate choral ballet, at the end of which (Jessica and Lorenzo being cut out) Portia and company soon finish off the plot; but, for some probably operatic reason, the full chorus is at Belmont, and, what is stranger, the chorus of Jews break in on it with Yiddish hymns. At the back of the stage a ship is seen on which is Shylock. The Jews and Christians continue singing, but gradually the Christians win, the Jews dying away as the Christians become more vociferous. So the curtain slowly falls. It is a strange and interesting work, and not without some dramatic touches. The themes are mostly cheap and _banal_, and there is little or no dignity about the part of Shylock; but the work is noteworthy if only for the fact that it is the only opera but one ever written or in any way produced on _The Merchant of Venice_. Also Shylock has one thing in his favour--he is not a tenor.

+Louis Deffes+, a French composer, born at Toulouse, {76} July 25, 1819, also composed an opera on this subject, in four acts, calling it _Jessica_. The libretto is by Jules Ardevies. The work was first performed on March 25, 1898, at the composer's birthplace. M. Deffes was a pupil of the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under Halevy and subsequently won the Prix de Rome. The librettist has taken the elements of his dramatic poem from Shakespeare's play, but has, owing to musical exigencies, very much cut down the work. On the other hand, he introduces a tragic denouement that had no place in Shakespeare's drama. To this book the composer has written most moving and dramatic music, which produced a deep effect on the audience when first performed.

This opera was to have been called _Shylock_ and brought out at the Opera Comique, where the work had been accepted; but circumstances decided otherwise. Among the prominent numbers that stand out in the first act are the song of Antonio, "C'etait le soir," and the fine finale. In the second act Jessica has a charming cavatina, and a very interesting duet with Shylock, who also has a fine song in this act. In the third act, at the culminating point of the work, is a delicious chorus of swallows (at the first performance beautifully sung by a chorus of young lady pupils from the Toulouse Conservatoire); a poetic dream reverie by Portia; and a charming ballet; the act ending with a brilliantly written quintet. In the fourth act are serious songs for Jessica and Shylock, the whole ending with a dramatic version of the Trial scene. The first performance was a veritable triumph for the composer, who, at the age of seventy-nine, an old pupil of the Toulouse Conservatoire, an old Prix de Rome man, and the composer of a dozen works produced in Paris, had returned to his native town to produce the opera and to take over the direction of the school of music at which he had begun his studies.

As regards incidental music, every production of this play must have some. There must be masque music for {77} Lorenzo and Jessica to elope to; there must be a setting of "Tell me where is fancy bred"; and Portia has her own private orchestra at Belmont. But most of the specially composed music for the _Merchant_ remains in manuscript.

+Sullivan+ wrote a very elaborate masque for the Calvert production at Manchester, much of which is published. There is a long and very Viennese valse, full of melody and grace, and a grotesque Dance for Pierrots and Harlequins, with a highly comic cadenza for the bassoon. The Bounce is the most familiar number, as it is frequently played as an _entr'acte_ in the theatre. It is very attractive, but not at all a bourree on the old accepted lines. There is also a melodious serenata in the rarely used key of E flat minor. These few numbers are all that have been printed.

+Engelbert Humperdinck+ wrote music for Reinhardt's production of this play in Berlin at the Deutsches Theater. This version of the play begins with a barcarolle sung by a tenor behind the act-drop as the curtain goes up. This, oddly enough, is sung in Italian, and the words are not by Shakespeare. Portia is discovered playing the lute in the second scene, cleverly imitated by Humperdinck on the harp. Before the second act is a very stately saraband. For the Prince of Morocco's entrance there is no attempt at Eastern local colour. Obviously the Prince in this version did not bring his own band, and trusted to Portia's private orchestra for his effects, and they did not know his national anthem; so he only gets an ordinary flourish, two trumpets and kettledrums. The same thing happens to Aragon, only the fanfare is different though in the same key. The march is very wild, working up to a great climax, and then dying away to nothing. "Tell me where is fancy bred" is set as a duet for soprano and contralto with female chorus, and makes a beautiful number. After this there is nothing till the last act. The curtain goes up to exquisite music, which lasts till the end of the play. {78} It is very lightly scored, strings, harps, solo violin, and horns, and every word can be heard through it: so it makes a perfect ending for the whole play. I have never read of this music being performed in England, but I can very strongly recommend it to any future producer of _The Merchant of Venice_.