We don’t know when, exactly, Shakespeare was born, but his baptismal date was April 26, 1564. From this, scholars have generally fixed his natal day as April 23. This year marks the 450th anniversary of the happy occasion. Therefore, we honor the Bard this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” with a handful of works inspired by Shakespeare plays and characters.
English composer Walter Leigh was killed in action during World War II, at the age of 37. He inherited from his teacher, Paul Hindemith, a facility in churning out music on demand. His suite after “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” written for open air performance, is a mash up of Elizabethan, Restoration and English pastoralist styles.
With the rise of fascism in Europe, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco fled Italy and, like many musical Europeans, settled in Hollywood. There he contributed to some 200 film scores. Throughout the 1930s, he had written concertos for Gregor Piatigorsky, Andrés Segovia and Jascha Heifetz. He is probably best known for his guitar pieces (of which he wrote roughly 100).
His output certainly reveals a strong predilection for the works of Shakespeare. He composed an opera after “The Taming of the Shrew,” four dances after “Love’s Labours Lost,” 33 Shakespeare songs and settings of 35 of the sonnets. Between 1930 and 1953, he also composed eleven overtures after Shakespeare plays, of which “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a delectable charmer.
Though he spent some very important years abroad, so that his reputation never emerged from the shadows of Dvořák and Smetana, Josef Bohuslav Foerster lived long enough (91 years) to become regarded as the grand old man of Czech music. His suite, “From Shakespeare” pays tribute to a number of female characters from Shakespeare plays, including Perdita from “The Winter’s Tale,” Viola from “Twelfth Night,” Lady Macbeth, and Katharina from “The Taming of the Shrew.”
In addition to these, we’ll have time for a song by Shakespeare contemporary Sir Thomas Morley.
It only scratches the surface – not surprisingly, the Bard has inspired hundreds of composers over the centuries – but hopefully the selections will make for an enjoyable hour of music.
Listen to “Great Shakes,” Sunday night at 10:00 ET, with a repeat Thursday at 11, or enjoy it as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
“…Pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object.”
