Brakedrums and Fanfares: Music for a Modern Macbeth

Abstract

W HAT VALUE AND FUNCTION DOES MUSIC have in a non-operatic, nonmusical theatre production? What can music communicate to an audience? How does music imitate situations and feelings? Can music emotionally prepare the audience and the players for a scene? How does it comment on a scene? In Shakespearean theatre it would seem all but impossible to mount a production without kind of music, simply because the plays specifically call for music. Be it song, dance, fanfare, or music for a ceremonial procession, form of articulated musical sound is required in virtually every Shakespearean play. Every season theatre producers commission original music for productions of both contemporary and classical plays. I was commissioned by the American Shakespeare Festival to compose music for John Houseman's 1967 production of Macbeth. This production and my score for it may serve as one way of addressing of the questions I posed in my opening paragraph. Macbeth usually brings to mind musical sounds of Scotland: eerie ghost music, royal ceremonial fanfares, marches, and battle music. In John Houseman's production there was no musical suggestion of Scotland. The sound was not spooky: rather it suggested natural, if alarming, noises of the night as those distant sounds reverberated in Macbeth's own mind. My music for Macbeth was the outgrowth of a collaboration with the director, John Houseman, and the actor who played Macbeth, John Colicos. It was also influenced by Rouben Ter-Arutunian's sets, which helped crystallize in my mind the style and content of the production. I should note, too, that while forming ideas for the music I regularly attended rehearsals; there I was able to sense the rhythm, timing, color, and direction of the production by watching the actors at work. In his initial meeting with me, Mr. Houseman said he was looking for lots of percussion and some kind of electronic tape score. He strongly opposed using any of the period fanfares that often accompany Shakespearean plays. Instead, he suggested metallic sounds (he also wanted the set to be metallic, which it was, according to Ter-Arutunian's design). Music for the witch and apparition scenes, Mr. Houseman said, should suggest that the witches and apparitions were in Macbeth's mind. Thus, for example, the music for Banquo's ghost should be a low, wide vibration seeming to emanate from the earth.