Music in the plays
Music sets a mood in many of Shakespeare's plays, both comedies and tragedies. Music on the lute*, recorder, or viol was courtly, refined: Hamlet calls for a recorder to put Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in their place*.
Oboes (hautboys) were more mysterious*, like their ancestor, the older shawm*, which was a rustic instrument by Shakespeare's time; in Beaumont's play The Knight of the Burning Pestle, the boorish Citizen scorns the recorders that provide refined music, and calls for the band of shawms ("waits") of the neighbouring Southwark district.
A song from The Tempest, played on recorders.*
The trumpet, drum and fife were warlike and royal. Trumpet "sennets" sounded to announce the king; and Benedick is horrified by Claudio's change in taste in music as he changes from soldier to lover*.
In his Diary, Philip Henslowe records some instruments owned by the company:
Item, iii trumpets and a drum, and a treble viol, a bass viol, a bandore [an instrument rather like a bass guitar--the name became corrupted to "banjo"], a cithern [an early form of the regular guitar]. . .
- More on the instruments used by Shakespeare's musicians.
- More on Shakespeare and music.
A page of links to sites about early music.
Footnotes
-
Lutes dancing
The piece you will hear if you click here is a dance for lute by Francis Cutting, a contemporary of Shakespeare's. Click for more on lutes.
-
Hamlet and the recorders
Hamlet: Will you play upon this pipe?
Guildenstern: My Lord, I cannot. . .
Hamlet: It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages [holes] with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. . .
(3. 2. 356-67)Listen to some recorder music (the melody is Robert Johnson's setting of the song from The Tempest, "Where the Bee Sucks"; a version for voice is also available from this page):
-
Mysterious music
In Antony and Cleopatra there is a moment towards the end when a number of unidentified soldiers are keeping guard outside Antony's camp. The stage direction reads: "Music of the hautboys is heard under the stage" (4. 3. 11). The soldiers speculate that it is "the god Hercules whom Antony loved, now leaves him."
-
Screaming shawms
Listen to the electronic recreation of the bagpipe-like sound of shawms (midi files) in two arrangements of popular dances by Curtis Clarke: a "Volte" by Michael Praetorius
and an anonymous Pavane.
-
A song from The Tempest
The song available from these links, "Where the bee sucks," was set by Robert Johnson, a contemporary of Shakespeare. In this performance, the singer is accompanied by recorder and lute.
-
Soldier to lover
I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabour and the pipe.
(Much Ado About Nothing, 2. 3. 12-14)The tabour and pipe were instruments suitable for clowns and dancing--see the woodcut of William Kempe).