Cæsar), and I don't suppose Bach ever heard of him; but I feel sure that Beethoven's "Coriolan" Overture owes something to Shakespeare as well as to von Collin, the direct author of the play. But when the plays began to be translated and circulated abroad, composers all over Europe came under his extraordinary influence, and began composing music to his plays or about characters in them.

No music to the plays by contemporary composers has survived. Most people associate him with Purcell, Locke, Robert Johnson, Bannister, or Pelham Humphrey; but all these were born some years after his death, except Johnson, whose settings of "Where the Bee Sucks" and "Full Fathom Five" are supposed to be the original; but, as Johnson was only twelve years old when Shakespeare died, The Tempest must have been produced without these songs, or Johnson must have been more than usually precocious. The Encyclopaedia Britannica definitely says that Johnson's settings are the original.

There are many theories to account for the singular absence of contemporary musical settings of Shakespeare's lyrics: a quite possible one being that he wrote his songs to popular tunes of the day, which everyone knew and no one troubled to write down and print. Many of our great revue composers hammer out the tune first and then get some versifier to write words to it. Anyhow, if one is going to produce Shakespeare's plays and only use settings composed for the original productions, one would have very little music; and, as he was always calling for music, both in his stage directions and from the mouths of his characters, the performances might please the Stage Society, but certainly would not have pleased the author.

Musically, there are many ways of producing Shakespeare's plays. One is the absolutely "correct" method—that is, to play The Tempest, say, with the precocious Johnson's two songs only. Another way, not so "correct," would be to use the precocious one's two songs, and also use contemporary music not written originally for the words, but adapted by the producer. Yet another way is the "broad-minded," and includes any setting of Shakespeare's words written within a hundred years or so. This method is still roughly described as Elizabethan, but if you include yet another hundred years the music is called Shakespearian. After that you get the Old English Wardour Street variety, and, later still, the tambourin school. To some people a liberal tambourin part in two-four time denotes "Old English" music:

(The same figure on the tambourin with the tinkling bells, is called "Eastern.")

A quite good method is to use the best of all the written music and make it into a hotch-potch. This is really a very practical way, and often gives good results. Finally, one takes the whole music written specially for one play by one composer of any period, and does it as written, with no addition or alteration: this is an ideal method very rarely put into practice. Even when commissioning a living composer, managers try to bring in a favourite number by Arne or Horn, and, unless the composer is a very strong or a very rich man, his musical scheme will be broken by some well-known tune not in the least in the style of the rest of his music.

It is difficult to persuade the average Shakespearian producer that Shakespeare, Arne, Sir Henry Bishop, and Horn were not great friends who used to meet daily at the Mermaid Tavern to discuss incidental music.

CHRISTOPHER WILSON.

SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

There is a long list of operas under the names Cléopâtre and Kleopatra in Clément et Larousse's Dictionnaire Lyrique, and in Riemann's Opernhandbuch, but it is doubtful if a single one of them can be said to be founded on Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. There seems material in it for hundreds of operas, but no one seems to have been inspired to write them.

Sir Henry Bishop has certainly written an "Epicedium," or funeral dirge, for the end of the play, for the production at Covent Garden; but though no author's name save Shakespeare's appears on the title-page, I can trace no text of Shakespeare's in this "Epicedium." It was produced in November 1813, and Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians does not mention it. It was sung at the end of the play, and is for chorus, orchestra, solo tenor and baritone. The first and second choruses are laments of the soldiers over Antony's death; then the solo baritone tells the chorus not to be ashamed of shedding tears, and the chorus sentimentalise over his bravery and generosity. The tenor sings of how he (Antony) was deserted by Mars and Neptune, and tells them to bury the lovers together. The final chorus is quite cheerful. Everyone seems pleased with the monument that has been erected, and "the shout of warriors thunders o'er the tomb." It is not a very dignified production, and I should not have paid much attention to it but for the fact that so little has been written musical on this subject that I thought some of my readers might be interested by this slight and incongruous work.

K. H. Graun in 1742 composed an overture to this play which is, I think, the earliest known work on the subject. The only available copy of the score is in Berlin, and, at the time of writing, rather difficult to get at. Graun was born in 1701, at Wahrenbrück, Saxony, and is one of the few celebrated composers who were famous operatic singers before they were composers. His oratorio The Death of Jesus takes the same place in Germany as Handel's Messiah does here in England.

August Enna, a Danish composer, wrote an opera founded on Shakespeare's play, which was produced at the Royal Opera House, Copenhagen, in 1894; but, with the exception of the overture, none of it has been performed in London. The overture was played under Sir Henry Wood by the Queen's Hall Orchestra on July 6, 1912. The opera was not a success in Copenhagen, in spite of the popularity of the composer and the natural sympathy he would receive from his compatriots. The critics said that he was obviously too much under the double influence of Wagner and Verdi, and, though admiring his prodigious technique in orchestration, gave him otherwise but faint praise. Enna was born May 13, 1860. He was largely self-taught; but, with the help of Niels Gade, won the Ancker Scholarship, a sort of Danish "Prix de Rome," which enabled him to study in Germany and acquire a considerable technique—a useful possession for a modern grand-opera composer.

Rodolphe Kreutzer, whose violin exercises have driven thousands of amateurs nearly to suicide, composed a "Grand Historic Ballet" on Antony and Cleopatra, which was produced in Vienna, but the date is as uncertain as the work's connection with Shakespeare's play. It would seem impossible to anyone who has seen or read the play not to have been influenced by it to a certain extent, and as Kreutzer was born in 1766 he may have seen or read some translation; but he does not appear to have gathered the slightest glimmer of the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, and he was content to compose a whole series of numbers, all equally banal, not one of them suggesting for a single moment either of the great lovers or the surroundings. The only redeeming feature of a long and tedious work