Musicking Shakespeare: A Conflict of Theatres by Daniel Albright

Abstract

I I04 Reviews Musicking Shakespeare: A Conflict of Theatres. By DANIEL ALBRIGHT. Rochester, NY, andWoodbridge: Boydell & Brewer for University ofRochester Press. 2007. x+3I7 pp. J45. ISBN 978-1-58046-255-6. In thiswide-ranging study Daniel Albright demonstrates the ingenuity and daring with which operatic composers have responded to thosemoments in Shakespeare's plays that seem self-consciously to reflecton thenature of theatre itself. He analyses musical works that draw upon this characteristic facet of Shakespearian drama, and each piece chosen here has something to say 'aboutmusic' itself (p. 85). Musicking Shakespeare moves fromBerlioz's genre-bending Symphonie dramatique, Rom& et Yuliet, which combines operatic interludeswith elements of a traditional symphonic form,via Verdi's Macbeth, 'nearly an anti-opera' (p. i8 i), toBritten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, where thePyramus and Thisbe skit sounds thekeynote of awork that seems to comment upon itsown processes inwhat Albright terms a kind ofmusical heteroglossia (p. 273). This lively book draws our attention to conflictwithin the theatre, to theways dramatic works-be they plays or operas-have the capacity to undermine themselves in a paradoxically productive manner. With Shakespeare's own investment in 'abutting differentdrama-games' in order to call attention 'to the inadequacy of any one taken singly' (p. 29) as a point of departure, and taking as itssubject musical works that show 'anuncomfortable strad dling between genres, between theatricalmodes' (p. 30), Albright's is a rigorously interdisciplinary project. The sheer breadth of terrain covered by the book means that some ideas remain intriguinglyunder-explored. A recurring theme throughout is thatof themasque, hinted at inAlbright's exciting suggestion thatProspero's final farewell speech in The Tempestmight be read as a critique of the stage conventions ofmasquing (p. 25). The witches ofMacbeth are likewise compared to 'thedirectors of amasque' (p. 125). The question of Shakespeare's own experience ofmusic in the theatre is, however, left largely unexplored, a fascinating yet faint counterpoint to Albright's main theme. In a series of portraits depicting theways a diverse selection of composers read three of the playwright's major works, Albright makes an important contribution to our understanding of thehistory of Shakespearian interpretation.Musicking Shakespeare draws upon musical scores (and, in later cases, recordings), as well as an extensive selection of diaries, reading notebooks, and private correspondence, to reconstruct an alternative account of the reception and performance history of these plays. Al bright treats composers as literary critics and theirworks as commentaries upon Shakespeare's texts.The final section of this book is a particularly effective survey of a disparate group of musical variations upon A Midsummer Night's Dream by composers including Henry Purcell, JohnFrederick Lampe, Felix Mendelssohn, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, en route to Britten. Here Albright draws illuminating comparisons between thediffering treatments Shakespeare elicits from each, and the debts these figuresowe in turn to theirpredecessors. By the timewe reach Britten's Dream the composer is able to draw upon this richmusical history to create a 'Babel ofmusical languages' that causes us to consider afresh themiscommunications of a play inwhich many of the characters 'scarcely speak the same tongue' (p. 267). Albright gives us an extremely personal account of theseworks thatdisplays all the passions and pleasures of reading-and listening to Shakespeare. PRINCETONUNIVERSITY HANNAH J.CRAWFORTH ...