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ОглавлениеCHAPTER I
SHAKESPEARE’S KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC
Shakespeare’s frequent tributes to the power of music, his apt use of musical terms and his many allusions to musical instruments, are, of course, well known.[1] We do not know anything of Shakespeare’s intercourse with contemporary musicians, but there were many good composers and theoretical writers hard at work during Shakespeare’s time, and it is certain he had knowledge of these men and their works and made good use of it. Of course, in those days music was an important branch of education, as important as Latin or Fencing. The story told in Morley’s Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practical Musike illustrates this rather well. A young man is describing his unfortunate experience at an evening party of the period:
Supper being ended, and music-books, according to custom, being brought to the table, the mistress of the house presented me with a part, earnestly requesting me to sing. But when, after many excuses, I protested unfeignedly that I could not, every one began to wonder, yea, some whispered to others demanding how I was brought up!
Now, what apparently was expected of a “well-brought-up” young man—one who would fulfil the conditions of 2 Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman so far as music was concerned—was that he should take part, at first sight, in a madrigal (the great vocal composition of the period) possibly in five or six parts, and to sing not from a score but from a single part—possibly also without bars; and because he had to “confess unfeignedly” that he could not, he was looked upon as one who had been badly “brought up.” I am afraid our present standard of musical education is hardly up to what was required in those days!
The prevalent study of music in Elizabethan times, and the use made of it by the upper classes in their houses—with their “chest of viols”—and the itinerant vendors of merchandise in London (as evidenced by the remarkable “Old Cryes” which I have had the good fortune to unearth), would make it advisable for any clever dramatist to introduce lyrics and instrumental music into his plays. And this is what Shakespeare did to a remarkable extent. It will be seen later on that, in some cases, he took lyrics with their settings which were popular, and inserted them, with some alteration of the words, in various plays. It was at one time thought that not a single note of the music originally written to Shakespeare’s plays was to be found. Professor Edward Taylor (one of my predecessors as Gresham Professor of Music) said in one of his lectures; “It is much to be regretted that the original music to all Shakespeare’s dramatic songs should have perished. No musical history with which I am acquainted contains any record of them, and no traces of their existence have I been able to discover.” We are in a better position now. The access to great libraries and the careful cataloguing of their contents have, with other things, enabled us to acquire some of these most interesting and valuable treasures, and it is to this music which formed part of the earliest representation of the plays, and also to the music written for Shakespeare’s 3 works later on in the seventeenth century, that I propose to direct attention.
Before, however, treating of the songs, I think it may be of interest to give a few of the more important allusions to (a) Musical Instruments and (b) Musical Form.
My words on these points will be brief, because the subject has been really exhausted in the two books to which I have referred in a note on page 1.
A curious allusion is to be found in The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock speaks of
The vile squeaking of the wry-neck’d fife.
This has been much discussed by Shakespearean students. C. Knight says “there is some doubt whether the ‘wry-neck’d fife’ is here the instrument or the musician.” Later on we shall have an example of the trumpet player being addressed (by Ajax) as “Thou Trumpet.” Boswell gives a quotation from Barnaby Rich’s Aphorisms (1618) which is very much to the point: “A fife is a wry-neck’t musician, for he always looks away from the instrument.” Dr. Naylor, however, gives the following explanation, which seems to settle the matter.
Mercenne (born 1588) says that the fife is the same as the Tibia Helvetica, which was simply a small edition of the Flauto Traverso, or German flute. That is, the fife of those days was much the same as the modern fife, with the usual six holes and a big hole near the stopped end where the breath was applied. The instrument was therefore held across (“traverso”) the face of the player, whose head would be turned sideways, and hence comes Shylock’s description of it as the “wry-neck’d fife.”
I am bound to say some authorities do not accept this. Mr. J. Finn, who plays many of the old instruments, tells me it is not necessary for the player to turn his head awry! Sometimes I have wondered if the expression “wry-neck’d” 4 had anything to do with the bird wryneck. This is described as “a small bird allied to the woodpecker, so called from the singular manner in which, when surprised, it turns its head over its shoulder.” Now there is an instrument of Shakespeare’s time—a cornet—which has a curve in it, and when held by the player “looks round towards his shoulder.” It also, as regards tone, suits the epithet “vile” a little better than the harmless fife. But I do not press this. The whole subject has been so often discussed, it seems impossible to be certain if Shakespeare really meant the fife or made a mistake and confused it with the cornet.
In Hamlet we find an interesting reference to the recorder. It is in the passage where Hamlet, rebuking Guildenstern, calls for the recorders.
Oh, the recorders, let me see one. . . . Will you play upon this pipe?
Guild. My lord, I cannot.
Ham. I pray you.
Guild. Believe me, I cannot.
Ham. I do beseech you.
Guild. I know no touch of it, my lord.
Ham. ’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
Guild. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me: you would seem to know my stops: you would pluck out the heart of my mystery: you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ: yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.
Hamlet, Act III. Sc. ii.
There is a curious point in this speech of Hamlet to 5 which I will allude for a moment: “You can fret me.” This is an allusion to the frets which were found upon the viols and other stringed instruments of the period, and which are to be found even now upon the guitar. They were divisions upon the neck of the instrument, showing where the fingers should be placed. It is not easy to see the connection between this word and the recorder, which was a wind instrument having “ventages” or air-holes upon which the fingers were placed. The stops are the ventages or air-holes.
In Troilus and Cressida we find the power of the warlike trumpet thus invoked by King Agamemnon:
Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,
Thou dreadful Ajax! that the appalled air
May pierce the head of the great combatant,
And hale him hither.
Ajax. Thou trumpet, there’s my purse.
Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe;
Blow, villain, till thy spherèd bias cheek
Outswell the colic of puff’d Aquilon:
Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood!
Thou blow’st for Hector.
Act IV. Sc. v.
We may remark here that though Shakespeare did not certainly undervalue the penetrating power of the trumpet, yet he shows an absence of knowledge of the proper method of blowing. The “spherèd bias cheek” would suggest that the player distended his cheeks, whereas all who have ever tried to make a sound—say upon a post-horn—know that this method produces no result, but that the lips and tongue are the important factors concerned. But, of course, Shakespeare here makes Ajax speak with the tongue of a braggart, and probably the demand for an exaggerated effort on the part of the trumpet is in keeping with the whole speech. The “sennet” alluded to in Macbeth 6 and other plays meant a flourish of trumpets announcing the approach of some important personage. The term “broken-music,” as in Troilus and Cressida, probably denoted the music of stringed instruments such as lutes and guitars, because the sound of these instruments cannot be sustained at will.
Another explanation is that “broken music” was any combination of instruments of different kinds. I confess I think the first explanation is the more likely.
An example of Shakespeare’s knowledge of musical form is
For on that ground I’ll make a holy descant.
Richard III., Act III. Sc. vii.
This refers to the well-known practice of composers writing upon a “ground-bass,” i.e. a short musical phrase repeated over and over again, the harmony which was superposed on the ground being the “holy descant.”
Another quotation may be permitted as showing Shakespeare’s knowledge of the material from which catgut for the viol strings was made:
Now, divine air! Now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? Much Ado About Nothing, Act II. Sc. iii.
