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...

  Sir William Walton One of Britain’s greatest ever composers, was born on the 29th of March 1902 at 93 Werneth Hall Road, Oldham, Lancashire. William Turner Walton’s birthplace was a typical Pennine mill town, characterised by factory chimneys, terraced houses and extremes of wealth and poverty. His determination to escape the drab, grey streets of Oldham, combined with a highly developed self critical awareness produced a fabulous body of work of the highest standard. This shy and reserved, yet inherently romantic Lancastrian, in whom stubborn independence and musical sensitivity were finely blended, would become the leading British musical figure between Vaughan Williams and Britten. His father, Charles Alexander Walton, was the son of an Inland Revenue off icial from Hale in Cheshire. Charles had a fine Bass-baritone voice and was one of first pupils at new Royal Manchester College of Music. He became the organist and choirmaster at St John’s Church, Werneth, for 21 years and s...