Helena Kean - Music and Images

Shakespeare’s Use of Music Elizabethan’s believed in the cosmic and symbolic value of music and its connection to the divine. In the ‘Traité de l’Harmonie Universelle’ of 1627, M. Mersenne illustrates the concept of order and degree in the universe as symbolised by the musical scale. He divides music into four significant categories: I. La Musique Divine II. La musique crée (qui) est dépendante de la Divine III. La musique mondaine IV. La musique humaine Shakespeare and his contemporaries found inspiration and symbolism from the third and fourth categories: the third representing the music of the spheres and the power of music to control the elements, and the fourth, the association of musical harmony with the ‘humors’ of the body, as understood in the medical and psychological lore of the time. In Burton’s ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy’ of 1621, we are told that Music ‘is a soveraigne remedy against Despaire and Melancholy’. This is perhaps best represented in the opening of Shakespeare’...

  The English Art Song - A Shakespeare Perspective William Shakespeare loved music and recognised its use as a theatrical tool. Nearly all of his thirty-seven plays contain music of some kind, which he has most skilfully used for dramatic, comic, or atmospheric purposes to great effect. Tragic heroines sing, swan-like, before death; clowns and fools are given the liberty to sing bawdy or controversial lyrics; impassioned suitors serenade in vain; lovers sigh; rogues celebrate the joys of country life; fairies sing lullabies; supernatural spirits cast spells; and villagers entertain with popular songs and ballads. Before wider literacy poems were always sung to communicate, memorise and disseminate the poem. Today Shakespeare’s genius is recognised across the world and the dissemination of his works via music has been very important. For over 400 years composers have been inspired by Shakespeare’s texts, writing operas, ballets, overtures, symphonic poems, musicals, suites, or...

  Alan Rawsthorne Most celebrated as a Hollywood film composer, this urbane, sophisticated man about town was born in Haslingden, Lancashire on the 2nd of May 1905. When the family moved to Sykeside House on edge of town in 1908, their home at Deardengate House was sold to the corporation and was later demolished. Alan was born into an affluent and close-knit family and was the second child of Hubert and Janet Rawsthorne. Hubert qualified as a doctor and practised medicine briefly during World War One. He subsequently gave up his practice to supervise the family lands and properties. The Rawsthornes of Rossendale were middle class, rural landowners with substantial farms, properties, and land and business interests in the sheep and wool trade. Over the years, in order to provide an income for the family, they had gradually sold off large parts of their estates. An idyllic childhood was provided by a financially, emotionally secure and very affectionate household. His mother Janet w...