Shakespearean Music Free Download

I assign Act I for homework over the next few days. Students will see those same lines at home in a much greater context and will be able to draw upon their prior knowledge from musical chairs. It will all assimilate into a deeper understanding of the text because they built a foundation of skill and knowledge from musical chairs. They are also gaining the confidence that they can handle difficult material on their own. Win-win.

Elizabeth I was fond of music and played the lute and virginal, sang, and even claimed to have composed dance music.[1][2] She felt that dancing was a great form of physical exercise and employed musicians to play for her while she danced. During her reign, she employed over seventy musicians. The interests of the queen were expected to be adopted by her subjects. All noblemen were expected to be proficient in playing the lute and "any young woman unable to take her proper place in a vocal or instrumental ensemble became the laughing-stock of society."[3] Music printing led to a market of amateur musicians purchasing works published by those who received special permission from the queen.

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Despite England's departure from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, English did not become the official language of the Church of England until the reign of Elizabeth's half brother Edward VI. His reign saw many revisions to the function within the Anglican Church until it was frustrated by the succession of Catholic Queen Mary. Queen Elizabeth re-established the Church of England and introduced measures of Catholic tolerance. The most famous composers for the Anglican Church during Queen Elizabeth's reign were Thomas Tallis and his student William Byrd. Both composers were Catholics and produced vocal works in both Latin and English. Secular vocal works became extremely popular during the Elizabethan Era with the importation of Italian musicians and compositions. The music of the late Italian madrigal composers inspired native composers who are now labelled as the English Madrigal School. These composers adapted the text painting and polyphonic writing of the Italians into a uniquely English genre of madrigal. Thomas Morley, a student of William Byrd's, published collections of madrigals which included his own compositions as well as those of his contemporaries. The most famous of these collections was The Triumphs of Oriana, which was made in honour of Queen Elizabeth and featured the compositions of Morley, Thomas Weelkes, and John Wilbye among other representatives of the English madrigalists.

Instrumental music was also popular during the Elizabethan Era. The most popular solo instruments of the time were the virginal and the lute. The virginal was a popular variant of the harpsichord among the English and one of Elizabeth's favourite instruments to play. Numerous works were produced for the instrument including several collections by William Byrd, namely the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and Parthenia. The lute strung with sheepgut was the most popular instrument of the age. Lutes could be played as solo instruments or as accompaniment for singers. Compositions of the latter variety were known as lute song. The most popular Elizabethan composer for the lute and of lute songs was John Dowland. Several families of instruments were popular among the English people and were employed for the group music making. If all of the instruments in an ensemble were of the same family they were considered to be in "consort". Mixed ensembles were said to be in "broken consort". Both forms of ensembles were equally popular.

In music history, the music of the English Renaissance is noted for its complex polyphonic vocal music, both sacred and secular, and the emergence of instrumental music. With the gradual shift in the early Baroque period, England experienced a decline in musical standing among European nations. After Dowland, the greatest English composer was Henry Purcell, whose death left a void in English music history until the Victorian era.

Street musicians or travelling minstrels were looked down upon. They were feared and soon grew out of style and were replaced by the tavern and theatre musician. Street music was common to be heard at markets and fairs. The music was usually light and quick. They performed using fiddles, lutes, recorders, and small percussion instruments attracting crowds whenever they played. The songs they played and sang were traditional favourites, "a far cry from the sophisticated and refined music of the Elizabethan court." [1]

Theater became increasingly popular when music was added. Location on stage meant everything to a theatre musician. The location gave certain effects to the sound produced. This could be the impression of distance or providing an atmosphere to the plays and performances done. Theatre music became even more popular with the rise of William Shakespeare in the 1590s.

A madrigal was the most common form of secular vocal music. The poetic madrigal is a lyric consisting of one to four strophes of three lines followed by a two-line strophe."[8] The English Madrigals were a cappella, light in style, and generally began as either copies or direct translations of Italian models, with most being for four to six voices.[9]

The next most popular stringed instrument, made in sizes and played in consorts or alone, was the viola da gamba. The viol had six strings, and frets of gut tied around the neck, rather than embedded in the fingerboard. The shape of the body was somewhat like the violin family instruments, but with deeper ribs, a shallow top plate and a flat back in two parts with the upper part angled to give clearance to the player. There were three main sizes: treble, tenor, bass, with reference made in a Gibbons six-part fantasia to the "great double bass." Unlike the violin family instruments, the viol bow was held underhanded, with the palm up and the middle finger in contact with the bow hair. The most popular size of the viol was the bass. Although roughly the size of a small cello, the bass viol had no end-pin, and, like the other viols, was supported by the legs (hence the Italian name, viola da gamba.) They were most commonly played in consort, i. e. as a family in groups of three, four, five, and six. In this way, they could be used as accompaniment for singing. Duet music for any two of the family still exists, and the bass, alone, was a popular solo instrument for pieces such as Woodycock. A small bass (or tenor-sized viol tuned as a bass) was often employed to play polyphonic music, Lyra-Way. When used in this fashion, the instrument was called lyra viol.

Sacred and Profane is a chamber chorus committed to the accomplished presentation of the rich and varied art of a cappella choral music. Our repertoire encompasses a diverse blend of styles and periods, including medieval through contemporary, sacred and secular, traditional, ethnic, and folk styles. We present our concerts in San Francisco and the East Bay.

Verdi's Macbeth (1847, revised 1865) now stands higher in esteem than at any other time in its history. Until the late 1930s it was usually criticised, derided even, both for its treatment of Shakespeare and for what was considered musical banality. We should not, in my opinion, deride this critical view. For my own part, I still find the music for witches and assassins ludicrously inept. The witches' cauldron chorus has all the supernatural terror of old-time cockneys out for a knees-up in Southend. Possibly (who knows) there would be a giggle among the groundlings in Shakespeare's own time, but, dramatically, these agents of evil have to be taken seriously: their role in the play is not as part of a demonic pantomime but as the unequivocal (if equivocating) "instruments of darkness". The fact that Verdi's characterisation of Macbeth and his Lady is both faithful to the play and independently creative, does not justify the opera as truly Shakespearean, though it is often assumed to. The supreme exponent of poetic drama in our language is more than a creator of characters, even when they are as fascinating psychologically and as central dramatically as are the protagonists here.

Shakespeare wrote more than 90 poems listed as lyrics and some of these have been among the most frequently set of all. Several are still sung to the original tunes: Desdemona's Willow Song and Feste's 0 mistress mine are examples. In the 17th century Matthew Locke wrote music for Dryden and Davenant's version of The Tempest, Ariel's songs being particular favourites among composers then and now. In the 18th, Arne wrote settings of the equally popular As You Like It lyrics, which have later attracted Sullivan, Parry, Quilter, Finzi and many others. Probably the loveliest of all sets of Shakespeare's songs in music is Finzi's Let Us Garlands Bring, and the third of them, "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" would, I think, be my nomination for the most moving of all.

But that term, "moving", has to be very subjective. Thinking of the lyrics in The Tempest, for instance, I am moved by the memory of Vaughan Williams's choral settings and not a bit by the thought of Tippett's Songs for Ariel. In the theatre (again the accident of personal experience) I remember Guy Wolfenden's setting of "When icicles hang by the wall" making the perfect end to Love's Labour's Lost many years ago at Stratford. But there again, in the theatre I have been more deeply moved (if the truth is to be told) by West Side Story than by Romeo and Juliet itself. Come to think about it (and here further candour is involved), one of those occasions was not even in the theatre but the cinema. The soundtrack of the original film of West Side Story I still find preferable to the subsequent recordings. Shakespeare himself has been appropriated by film-makers, usually adapting the texts and producing a modern addition to the so-called Bad Quartos among early copies. But the music has often been good. Excerpts from Walton's scores for Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III can be wonderfully effective in calling the films to mind and remain attractive as independent compositions. Michael Nyman's Tempest music is on my black-list together with Prospero's Books, the dreadful film for which it was written. Sibelius's Tempest is another matter, as are Tchaikovsky's Hamlet and Prokoviev's Romeo and Juliet. e24fc04721