Songs by Shakespeare

Subject: Songs *by* Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 12:16 PM

(I was prompted to start this thread as contiunation of one that began here: Folklore: Chivalry/Courtesy in Shakespeare?)

We don't usually think of Shakespeare as "musical theater," but the fact is that there is a good bit of singing in many of his plays. Often, the characters sing snatches of popular songs of the day, as in Act II, scene iii of Twelfth Night, where Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Feste the clown "rouse the night-owl in a catch."*

But then, there are the songs that Shakespeare wrote especially for the play in which they appeared. It's hard to say for certain which songs Shakespeare himself penned, rather than borrowing a song already out there. But sometimes, a song is such a perfect match for the scene and overall theme of the play, that it's hard to come to any other conclusion than Shakespeare wrote them himself.

The problem is that the tunes were not written down in the plays themselves, and that leaves the modern directors and a producers with the puzzle of what to do with them -- speaking them aloud just doesn't work very well. They might commision someone to come up with an entirely new tune, or they might go back to a tune composed in the 17th or 18th centuries (still long after Shakespeare's own time).

I know some Mudcatters are also involved in the theater, both formal and informal (such as RenFaires and creative anachronisms). So how about it, you thespian 'Cats? What are your thoughts about this? And have you found or composed tunes for your favorite Shakespeare songs?

*A few of these songs can be found in the DT. But a few can not. Shall I set a Mudcat Treasure Hunt Challenge to find the full lyrics and tunes for the other songs cited in that scene? I think I shall. >:-)

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 12:52 PM

That whole scene is a wonder, is't not?

A

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 03:28 PM

There has been a lot written about the tunes used in Shakespeare. See for example Shakespeare And Music With Illustrations From The Music of the 16th and 17th Centuries - E.W.Naylor 1896 or Music In Shakespearean Tragedy - F.W.Sternfeld 1963 for information on contemporary, near-contemporary and traditional music used.

Of course many composers from the 17th century onwards have written tunes for the songs.


Mick

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 04:24 PM

Amos -- that scene is indeed a wonder. Another favorite musical scene of mine is Act IV, scene iv of A Winter's Tale, where Shakespeare has good fun with the broadside trade, and the kind of banter used to sell them (you'll have to scroll down a little bit -- it's a long scene).

Mick -- Thanks for the heads-up on these two books. I shall definitely keep an eye out for them. Is either of them still in print, do you know?

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Celtaddict
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 05:05 PM

In London a few weeks ago I picked up a CD of "Songs [for? by? of?] Shakespeare" so I will flag this thread and when I get home I will get the info from that.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 05:36 PM

As far as I know Naylor is not in print but you can find second-hand copies. Bookfinder shows quite a few copies available ($10 to $35). It also show other titles by Naylor which may or may not be the same, but are on the same subject, some on Amazon. (I should check both). I'm not sure about Sternfeld (it looks as though not), but Bookfinder shows s/h copies for about $10 to $50.

Mick

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Jeanie
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 05:54 PM

Newly published (April 2004) and just what you are looking for:
"Shakespeare's Songbook" by Ross W. Duffin (Prof. of Music at Case Western Reservere University), published by W.W. Norton. The result of 8 years' research; 160 songs included in or mentioned in Shakespeare's plays, with accompanying CD.

All the publisher's details are here: Shakespeare's Songbook

For people in the UK, I know it's available from French's (saw someone enquiring about it and buying one in there only yesterday !)

"What is love ? 'Tis not hereafter,
Present mirth hath present laughter."

To all those who say otherwise, I say "Sneck up !"

(I love that scene, too).

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 06:46 PM

Jeanie

I'd seen that on Norton's site just a month ago and forgotten all about it. There's an interview with the author on NPR - Ballads from the Bard - click the All Things Considered audio (RealAudio/WindowsMedia) for the interview and some song clips. (In the interview he estimates that about half of the songs can be reliably associated with contemporary tunes.) It's a little under £20 from Amazon UK (and I'll probably get a copy!).

Mick

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 08:25 PM

Ooh, cool, Jeanie! Another book to add to my wishlist!

And from the same song, I particularly like the lines: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; / Journeys end in lovers meeting -- home is not so much a place as wherever your loved ones are.

(And to whomever disagrees, I say: "Go shake your ears!")

And thanks for the link, Mick. I shall definitely give it a listen...

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 17 Jul 04 - 05:15 PM

While searching in the DT for songs from Shakespeare prior to starting this thread, I found this note attatched to Jog On, Jog On:

. . . Whether the latter portion of this song was also by him (nay, more, whether he wrote or merely quoted even the four opening lines), cannot be determined. We prefer to believe that from his hand alone came the fragment at least. - this lively snatch of melody with good philosophy, such as the ascetics reject to their own damage. No wrong is done in accepting the remainder of the song as genuine. . . .

(Taken from Edmonstoune Duncan's The Minstrelsy of
England 1905)

It struck me as an interesting sign of past generations' attitudes toward music (and art in general) that the song would have been considered more "genuine" if the song had been written by Shakespeare than if he had skillfully borrowed a commonly known song already in existance.

Today, we suffer from almost the opposite point of view: that a song isn't really "genuine" unless it can be traced through an unbroken line of oral tradition at least three generations.

Personally, I disagree with Mr. Duncan's conclusion. I think it is much more likely that the song was a popular one of its day, which Shakespeare chose because it fit his character Autolycus (pedlar, theif, con man, and general rogue-about-town).

However, I do sense more of Will's hand in Autolylus' soliloquy at the beginning of the scene:

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing

AUTOLYCUS
When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.
The lark, that tirra-lyra chants,
With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay.
I have served Prince Florizel and in my time
wore three-pile; but now I am out of service:
But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
The pale moon shines by night:
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.
If tinkers may have leave to live,
And bear the sow-skin budget,
Then my account I well may, give,
And in the stocks avouch it.
My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to
lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who
being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise
a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With die and
drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is
the silly cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful
on the highway: beating and hanging are terrors to
me: for the life to come, I sleep out the thought
of it. A prize! a prize!
(From Act IV, scene iii of A Winter's Tale)

A "springtime" song that praises the fact that sheets are now easier to steal, and complains that birdsong sets the singer's teeth on edge would no more be in the top 40 back then it would today. ;-) But such poking fun at the sacred cows of romantic convention does fit Autolycus' personality (and, dare I say, Shakespeare's, too. See his Sonnet 130)

Autolycus' soliloquy slips from singing into speech and then back into a song with a very different scansion. It's an almost perfect rendering of stream of consciousness, and its deft handling is one reason A Winter's Tale is one of my all time favorites among Shakespeare's plays.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: JJ
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 09:56 AM

For a production of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING set in the 1870s American Southwest I had the cast sing, "Sigh No More," to the tune of "Shenandoah."

Works just fine with a little fiddling.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 11:46 AM

When I think of songs by (from, in) Shakespeare, I think, with a shudder, of the one that goes something like "whit-woo, jug-jug, cuckoo, sweet lovers love the spring". Pure awful!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 01:50 PM

JJ -- I'd love to hear how you fiddled with Shenandoah to make it fit. Could you post an ABC of the tune here, mayhaps?

This also brings up a point I'm ambivalent about: the "modernization" of Shakespeare's plays. Last weekend, my aide went to see an amatuer (or semi-pro) outdoor production of Twelfth Night, which she'd never seen before (and said she'd take me to see it next weekend -- I shall remind her, as it is one of my favorites).

She reported that all the characters were dressed in modern clothing, and that they had replaced all the songs and song snatches with modern songs the audience would recognize. On the one hand, this can reproduce the feeling that Shakespeare's audience might have had, hearing a familiar line of music coming from the characters' mouths (and also solves the problem of "what tune should we sing this to?"). But on the other, I wonder how they handle the more formal set piece song in the play ("Come away, come away, Death"). I fear the contrast between modern lyrics and the Shakespearian dialog would be too great, and would just underline for the audience how "Wierd they all talked, back then." But then again, I haven't seen this production yet... so I'll reserve final judgement.

But I was wondering what others thought on this question.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 02:03 PM

Uncle Dave --

I think you mean "There was a Lover, and his Lass" from As You Like It (Which, as was pointed out in that NPR interview Guest Mick linked to, was made famous by Groucho Marx):

It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green corn-field did pass
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino
These pretty country folks would lie,
In spring time, & c.
This carol they began that hour,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
How that a life was but a flower
In spring time, & c.
And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino;
For love is crowned with the prime
In spring time, & c.

In which case, it might be worthy to note the lines following the song:

TOUCHSTONE
Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great
matter in the ditty, yet the note was very
untuneable.

First Page
You are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time.

TOUCHSTONE
By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear
such a foolish song. God be wi' you; and God mend
your voices! Come, Audrey.

Context is everything (or at least half)!

Exeunt

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 03:47 PM

I wouldn't say that changing the time and place of the plays necessarily works or necessarily doesn't. But certainly I have seen it done extremely effectively on some occasions. A year or two ago we saw an RSC production of the Merry Wives set in 1940s Britain. There were several appropriate analogies and resonances, and once engaged with the production, the juxtaposition of a 20th century setting with Elizabethan vernacular didn't matter at all.

The most effective re-setting that I've seen of anything was Jonathan Miller's setting Rigoletto in the gangster world of prohibition Chicago.

Thanks for the info about the books - I'll certainly go in search of the new one by Duffin. (Are tehre really 160 songs in Shakespeare? I'd probably have guessed 40 or 50, thinking I was aiming high.)

Capri, your posts are once again enlightening and amazingly timely. We'll be seeing Twelfth Night at Nottingham Castle on Tuesday night (20th)! I trust that this time my daughter will not encroach so much on your time with her PMs!

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Jeanie
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 04:30 PM

I know just what you are getting at, CapriUni and it's something I have often thought about and talked about with others, to see what they think. It could seem to be a problem marrying up not only the music but also the costume and set with the Shakespearean language if a play is staged in another period. I've seen, and acted in, productions set in anything from early medieval to futuristic/timeless. I don't think the contrast between the Shakespearean language and the music/costume/set need be such a problem as appears at first. If Shakespeare is performed well, the characterization and situation is made clear to the audience, even if they do not understand every single archaic word or expression which is spoken. (Though the *actors* have to understand everything they are saying !) In a good production, the audience is drawn in to the characters and events as they unfold, and the thought you mention of "how weird they all talked back then" disappears from the audience's mind.

I was in an "Art Deco" production of "Twelfth Night", where Orsino's retinue followed him around with minions carrying a wind-up gramophone and a box of records. The incidental music was grand opera - rather than contemporary to the 1920s - for the Viola/Orsino scene "How dost thou like this tune ?", to show Orsino as a bit of a "young fogey", a romantic lagging behind the popular music of his times. I rather liked that little touch. Feste's "Come away, death" song in that scene was sung to a 'timeless' monotonous tune - not one I recognized. Again, because the song is requested by "old fogey" Orsino, the tune can feasibly be from any period in history earlier than the one in which the play is set.

The actors in the late night carousing scene made up the tunes to their snatches of songs (I think) - the tunes certainly came out differently each time ! I think the most important thing in that scene is for the singing to be bawdy and raucous. The director had them doing lots of bawdy gestures. The dancing was just general jigging about. I think if I'd been directing it, I would have had Sir Andrew (who is desperate to be fashionable) attempting the new-fangled Charleston, and failing miserably !

A production of "Twelfth Night" I saw in the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in London 5 years ago was also set in the 20s. Gavin Muir played Feste and sang the final song, "When that I was and a little tiny boy" as a slow blues, playing guitar. Feste on the stage, under the stars, with one spot and the rest of the stage in darkness was nothing short of magical.

I think the 20s is a wonderful period in which to set "Twelfth Night". The production I was in played on this period of male/female ambivalence (women wearing trousers for the first time in fashion, for instance) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek was actually played by a woman.

For fun, here is a link to a song "Give me an M", sung by Malvolio as he reads the M.O.A.I. letter in the "Shakespeare4kidz" version of "Twelfth Night". Definitely *Not* original to Shakespeare, but fun - and it makes Shakespeare accessible to under 11 year olds: Shakespeare4kidz The link to this (and other songs and plays) is in their "Try Zone".   

I'll be interested to hear more about that "Twelfth Night" production when you have seen it, CapriUni.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 04:40 PM

Yes... Anything done well is a treasure.

A few years back, PBS aired a "Masterpiece Theater" production of A Merchant of Venice set in the 1920's, with the tensions leading to the rise of Fascisism hovering over the whole story -- that certainly added a layer of nuance that wouldn't be there for modern audiences if it had been set in the 1600s.

On the other hand, I sometimes suspect (especially with amatuer productions) that it's done as a "trick" to draw the audience in -- espeacially if they swap out the original text for modern references.

As for the number of songs in Shakespeare's plays, there may be 40 or 50 songs that are set pieces. There are, after all, 37 plays; some plays have none, and some have several (I counted six in As You Like It alone, and the fairies have a passel of songs in Midsummer Night's Dream). But this collection also includes songs that get one-line mentions.

Well, as for the timing, that is pure accident. And don't worry about Sorch "enchroaching" on my time -- it's refreshing to meet someone who enjoys Shakespeare's work because it's cool, rather than because she feels she ought to like it. :-)

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 04:55 PM

I'll be interested to hear more about that "Twelfth Night" production when you have seen it, CapriUni.

Yes, so would I! ;-)

I think if I'd been directing it, I would have had Sir Andrew (who is desperate to be fashionable) attempting the new-fangled Charleston, and failing miserably !

Oh, that would be perfect! I love Sir Andrew... but only as a comic character. I'd hate to actually have to deal with someone like that in real life.

(oh, and in the quoting post above, I meant for the "Context is everything" comment to come after the "exeunt."

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Celtaddict
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 06:46 PM

I was in London last month and saw Trevor Nunn's production of "Hamlet" which was played as contemporary. The political machinations were spot-on, and the language was not an issue at all, as the phrasing was altered only slightly here and there (to soften the most glaringly archaic bits) but the delivery had a slightly formal but "modern" cadence to the speech. He also cast Hamlet and his friends with actors of student (or student-prince) age, which worked quite admirably. I have always thought that Hamlet's desperately passionate (and at times, face it, sulky) nature paired with his ambivalence and difficulty actually deciding to do something and pursuing it seemed much more compatible with a very young developing personality rather than with the mature actors usually cast in this part.
I also years ago saw a version of The Scottish Play performed in the round, in which there was no scenery, and the various characters were dressed in attire evidently felt in keeping with their characters. The witches were medieval. Lady Macbeth was rather melodramatically Victorian. King Duncan had a long draping robe, and an elongated face with long white hair and beard, looking very like a medieval tomb effigy. The military men were WWII but Macbeth himself was dressed like James Dean.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Celtaddict
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 07:06 PM

This thread is coalescing to a degree with the Simon and Garfunkel generation gap thread.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 08:54 PM

I'd skipped over the generation gap thread until now, Celt, when I browsed/skimmed through it.

You're right, I think, in a way: modern audiences are more attuned to visual cues than generations past, and so, for us, the visual details such as costuming and sets can make a big difference in how we receive the plays. But in this case, I think the gap is wider than "over 30" and "under 30" (just add a zero to those two numbers). ;-)

Shakespeare's culture was much more aural/oral than ours -- his was the first generation that had state-supported schools promoting universal literacy as a goal. And in his day, the phrase was: "Let's go hear a play," rather than "Let's go see a play." Indeed, even the word "audience" belies this bias of generations past.

What makes me ... uneasy ... is the sense I get from some productions that they feel they have to "put on" a modern style of performance in order for the audience to 'get it' (but not all modernized productions, by any means).

What makes me *squee!* with delight is that Shakespeare's works are strong and flexible enough to withstand a multitude of interpretations. In the 1700's for example, Beatrice, from Much Ado About Nothing, was typically played as a shrew. In Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film version, she was played as a "pleasant-spirited lady." And both interpretations rang true for their audiences. Just as with real people that we meet, what strikes one as bitchy strikes another as vivacious and charming. His characters can fit just as well in an imagined far future, a distant past, and the present time.

I started this thread to discuss all the different ways we can handle Shakespeare's songs, and by extension, the whole of his plays -- not to argue that one way is necesarily better than another.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Jen M
Date: 18 Jul 04 - 10:25 PM

My son had to "perform" a scene for his 8th grade english class. They did Act Two, Scene Two of Midsummer Night's Dream. I had them sing the fairies song (You spotted snakes...) to the tune on Greensleeves. It was as close as I could come to a "period" tune and it needed just a little tweaking to fit.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 12:41 AM

Who spotted the snakes?

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Celtaddict
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 12:43 AM

Absolutely! There are some plays, songs, words, tunes, that are powerful enough to survive all manner of changes being rung on them, and still speak to the audiences of any generation.
Great point about the word "audience" by the way.

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: JJ
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 08:47 AM

Capri Uni, "Sigh No More" to the tune of "Shenandoah" went like this:

Sigh no more
Oh, ladies sigh no more
Men were deceivers ever
One foot on sea
And one on shore
To one thing constant never

Sung to:

Shenandoah
I'm bound to leave you
Away, you rollin' river
Oh, Shenandoah
I'm bound to leave you
Across the wide Missouri

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 05:22 PM

Jen M. -- I don't know if you checked it out, yet, but "You Spotted Snakes" is one of the song clips in that NPR link Guest, MCP provided, just in case you're interested.

JJ -- Thanks! Took me a while to match up the syllables to the notes. But I think I've got it.

...Since then, I've had "Shenandoah" stuck in my head. Heh. There could be far worse tunes lodged up there! :-)

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 07:11 PM

Is that another Mudcat challenge, CapriUni?

Subject: RE: Songs by Shakespeare
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 12:33 PM

Sure, Peter! Why not? I try to make it a habit to praise what I like before criticizing what I don't ... it makes life more enjoyable. :-)

Speaking of modernizing Shakespeare, has anyone here seen Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of "Love's Labors Lost"? I haven't, but the idea behind it sounds ...intriguing.

Apparenlty, he set the play in the 1930's, and turned it into a '30's style movie musical by inserting popular standards from that time into the action, including full dance routines.

Love's Labors Lost is not among my favorite Shakespeare plays, though it has its fun moments. According to most timelines I've seen, he wrote LLL in his second year as a playwright (timelines like this are, at best, highly educated guesses, but still they're as good a measure as we've got). And it shows. He's got enough confidence to start playing with his craft, but not yet enough experience to know when to tone it down a notch ... or two. I read it, once, and the dialogue reminded me of a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song ... all the way through the play.

I think Branagh must have had a similiar reaction.

Still, it has one of the funniest exchanges between characters (imnsho) of any play in the intervening 410 years:

BIRON
Our wooing doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.

FERDINAND
Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then 'twill end.

BIRON
That's too long for a play.

(Ba-da-bum ching!)

And shortly after, this two-part song is rather clumsily tacked onto the end... but nonetheless, I think it is one of Shakespeare's better songs -- particularly the "winter" half, in the way that he picks out specific, small details to evoke a whole feeling, mood and sense of life:

THE SONG

SPRING.
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
WINTER.
When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow
And coughing drowns the parson's saw
And birds sit brooding in the snow
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.