MUSIC AND SHAKESPEARE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 14 June 1930, Page 10

MUSIC AND SHAKESPEARE

The late Sir Frederick Bridge was an ardent student of the music of Shakespeare’s day, and, just before his death, published an excellent small work, “Shakespeare Music in the Plays and Early Operas,” from which the following facts are taken:— “Music in Shakespeare’s day was considered as important a branch of knowledge as Latin or fencing.” “In Shakespeare’s day the man who did not know how to sing at sight was not considered well brought up.” “All tlie upper class houses in Elizabethan days boasted of having a chest of viols.” “In Shakespeare’s day the accompaniments to the songs were upon lutes and viols. The lute was a fretted instrument, picked after the manner of the guitar, but with ,a pear-shaped body like 1 lie mandolin and a- Jong neck. It was said to cost as much to keep a good lute in condition as to keep a good horse. 'I bey Were valued very highly, and. in order that they might not he exposed to the weather, they were kept in a bed between the rug and the blanket.” “In the early representations of ‘Hamlei,’ the soliloquies of the dismal Dane wore often spoken to musical accoru--7 animent.”