Music living through Shakespeare
... echo with the ceremonial sound of trumpets and drums.” (Sternfeld, pg.79) Some instruments were played so that the sound that came from them fit the scene in which they were used for instance; music that was played on the lute, recorder, or viol was played with delicacy. On the other hand, oboes were played to sound more mysterious. The trumpet, drum and fife were warlike and royal. “As is the case today, string instruments were either plucked or bowed. The ancestor of the modern guitar was the cittern, or gittern, and was favored by street performers, bowed instruments were also subject to class distinctions. The shrill, eerie, wind instruments had a sound for every season.”(Long. Pg.220). certain instruments had symbolic significance for Elizabethans. The professional companies that put on plays in the public theatres worked with minimal musical resources. “Usually it would be one boy-actor that could sing and perhaps play an instrument. Adult actors, especially those specializing in clown roles, sang as well.” (Seng, pg.143) A special musical comedic genre called the Jigg, was the home of the great Shakespearean comedians. “Jiggs were put on at the conclusion of a history play or tragedy.” (Baskervill, pg.82) They involved anywhere from two to five characters and were sung to popular melodies and were accompanied by the fiddle. “Shakespeare assigned most of the singing to servants (both children and adults), clowns, fools, rogues, and minor personalities.” (Seng, pg34) Major characters never sang, except when they were in disguise or in their distracted mental states. Most songs, in fact, are addressed to the protagonists themselves. “It is reasonable to conclude that Shakespeare both made use of songs that were established in the popular repertoire of the period and composed his own lyrics as well. In both cases, the songs in his plays never seem to be extraneous, though their reasons for being there can be complex.” (Long, pg 69) Shakespeare also used songs to establish the character or mental state of the singer. Other types of vocal music which appeared in the plays include serenades, part-songs, rounds, and catches, all used very much in imitation of real life in Renaissance England. The authenticity affects most of the vocal music as well as instrumental. Barely a dozen of the songs exist in its original contemporary setting, and not all of them are known to have been used in Shakespeare's own productions. “For example, the very famous Thomas Morley version of "It was a lover and his lass" is a very ungratefully arranged lute song. In As You Like It the song was sung, rather badly it seems, by two pages, probably children. Some of the most important and beloved lyrics, such as "Sigh no more, ladies," and the saddest of all, "Come away, death," are no longer attached to their melodies.” (Wulstan, pg.100) In addition to Morley, it is believed that two other composers, Robert Johnson and John Wilson had some association with Shakespeare at the end of his career.” (Jorgens, pg.36) As soon as the public theatre moved indoors, the idea that they needed to preserve these works of art was taken more seriously. It is known that at least 50 intact songs from the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher and their contemporaries, many of them composed by Johnson and Wilson. Music sets a mood in many of Shakespeare's plays, both comedies and tragedies. “Not a single note of instrumental music from the Shakespeare plays had been preserved, with the possible exception of the witches' dances from Macbeth, which are thought to have been borrowed from a contemporary masque.” (Craik, pg145) Even descriptions of the kinds of music that were used are not easy to come by. “Trumpets sounded "flourishes," "sennets," and "tuckets." A flourish was a short blast of notes. The sennet and tucket were English manglings of the Italian terms sonata and toccata”. (Stevens, pg.90) These were longer pieces, though still probably improvised. Some were medium slow pieces usually composed over a repeated bass line. "Measures" were considered dance steps made up of various moves. “The most popular court dances of the period were the pavan, a stately walking dance, the almayne, a brisker walking dance, called the galliard, was a vigorous leaping dance in triple time of which Queen El...