The Classical Music Book

208

I AM SURE MY MUSIC

HAS A TASTE OF COD

FISH IN IT

PEER GYNT ( 1875 ), EDVARD GRIEG

I

ncidental music has probably

existed as long as theatre

itself. It was intrinsic to

Shakespeare’s plays, which include

cues for instrumental music as well

as songs—some 100 in total—

although no scores have survived.

By the late 1700s, Europe’s

major theatres would employ

a substantial orchestra, and

sometimes vocal soloists and

a chorus, to accompany plays.

Examples of incidental music

of the 18th and early 19th century

include Mozart’s Thamos, King of

Egypt (c.1773–1779), Beethoven’s

Egmont (1810), and Schubert’s

Rosamunde (1823), which were

of sufficient quality to make it

into the concert hall.

The music that Felix

Mendelssohn composed for a

German-language production of

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer

Night’s Dream was one of the most

successful pieces to make such a

transition. It was first staged in

Potsdam, Germany, in 1843,

including a masterful overture

written when the composer was

just 17. While under the patronage

of Frederick IV, king of Prussia,

Mendelssohn would go on to

compose incidental music for

productions of Oedipus at Colonus

and Racine’s Athalie in 1845. In

1849, Robert Schumann wrote

music to accompany Byron’s

dramatic poem Manfred.

Norwegian collaboration

When Henrik Ibsen, Norway’s most

celebrated writer, completed Peer

Gynt, based on a Norwegian folk

hero, in 1867, he thought of it as a

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Music for the theatre

BEFORE

1810 Beethoven writes the

incidental music to Goethe’s

tragic play Egmont.

1843 Shakespeare’s A

Midsummer Night’s Dream

opens in Potsdam with

Mendelssohn’s music.

1872 Grieg composes music

for Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson’s

Sigurd Jorsalfar, celebrating

King Sigurd I of Norway.

AFTER

1908 La Mort du duc de Guise,

a film with a score by Camille

Saint-Saëns, opens in Paris.

1915 Edward Elgar writes

the incidental music for The

Starlight Express, a chi ldren’s

play by Violet Pearn.

“The Dance of the Trolls” was

illustrated in macabre style by the

British artist Arthur Rackham for

an edition of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt.

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