Shakespeare in Music

Jesus Pineda
“ If music be the food of love, play on;”
- Twelfth Night

Music in Shakespeare’s Plays

• It was customary in Tudor and Stuart drama to
include at least one song in every play.

• Shakespeare defied this orthodoxy and used

songs startlingly and movingly, particularly in
Othello, King Lear, and Hamlet.

• Twelfth Night was first performed at Whitehall

on Twelfth Night, 1601, as part of a traditional
royal celebration of the holiday.

• Renaissance Neoplatonic idea of the “music of

the spheres” and the effect of both heavenly and
earthly harmonies on the health of the human
spirit.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Music in Shakespeare's Plays.” Encyclopædia

Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 14 Sept. 2005, www.britannica.com/topic/Music-in-
Shakespeares-Plays-1369568
 Shakespeare in Opera

• From the 17th century to the present day, we

have examples, in all kinds of musical genres,
of work responding to his plays and his poetry.

• 17th century you’ll have something like Henry

Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen”, performing
“Midsummer Night’s Dream” but through dance,
music and song and recitative..

• Benjamin Britten and “Midsummer Night’s

Dream”, Verdi: “Macbetto”, “Otello”, Aribert
Reimann’s Lear (1978), Verdi’s Falstaff

• Opera and Opera Buffa.

Euronews. “Music and Shakespeare.” Euronews, 3 Mar. 2016

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Shakespeare and Opera.” Encyclopædia Britannica,
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 1 June 2006
Shakespeare in Musical Theatre

• Recent adaptations of Shakespeare can be

seen in Bernstein’s West Side Story based on
Romeo and Juliet.

• Kiss me, Kate. Composer and lyricist Cole

Porter made the score of this musical based on
the Taming of the Shrew.

• All Shook Up.Broadway jukebox musical built

around the catalogue of Elvis Presley drew its
story from Twelfth Night.

• The Boys From Syracuse. Richard Rodgers and

Lorenz Hart’s 1938 show The Boys from
Syracuse was the first Broadway musical to be
based on a Shakespeare play, namely The
Comedy of Errors

• Hair. “What a Piece of Work is Man”.

Smith, Alistair, et al. “Mark Shenton's top 10 musicals based on Shakespeare.” The Stage, 9
Mar. 2017, www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/2017/mark-shentons-top-10-musicals-based-on-
shakespeare-2/.
Shakespeare in Popular Music

• Exit Music (For a Film) by Radiohead

(Romeo + Juliet)
• Love Story by Taylor Swift.
• Miss Macbeth by Elvis Costello.
• Richard III by Supergrass.
• The Milkman of Human Kindness by Billy
Bragg (Macbeth)
• Ophelia by the Lumineers.
• I am the Walrus by The Beatles. (King Lear)
• King Nothing by Metallica
• The King Must Die by Elton John
• Sister Moon by Sting
• Limelight by Rush
• Something Wicked by 2Pac
• Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons.
(Much Ado About Nothing)

Smith, Alistair, et al. “Mark Shenton's top 10 musicals based on Shakespeare.” The Stage, 9
Mar. 2017, www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/2017/mark-shentons-top-10-musicals-based-on-
shakespeare-2/.
It’s the moon running to the sun…

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already
sick and pale with grief That thou, her maid, art far more
fair than she. . . .
- Romeo and Juliet

The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches
from the sun.
-Timon of Athens
• Take ‘A Twelfth Night’ for example. The opening line of “If music be
the food of love, play on” spoken by Duke Orsino, obsessed by love,
as he orders his court musicians to play long enough to satisfy and
dilute his desires.

• For do but note a wild and wanton herd or race of youthful and
unhandled colts fetching