Peripeteia

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Music & Hamlet

Neil Bowen on


Musical interpretations of Hamlet

https://open.spotify.com/album/3W82m5ATiE2ivHbBCUK5bv?si=QjuZ65dxQUyEUYyfy5vARA

Liszt - ‘Hamlet’ (1858) symphonic poem. Liszt, as a somewhat typical Romantic, agrees with much of Goethe’s writing on Hamlet’s character and believes him an ‘exceptional’ person. In a symphonic poem, often the structure is formed by giving characters particular themes which recur whenever the character is to be evoked in the music - Ophelia’s theme is marked to be played ‘as quietly as possible’ and to sound ‘like a shadowy picture’.

Liszt thought that Ophelia was ‘incapable of loving [Hamlet] the way he must be loved’, and her weak, ghostly portrayal in this music is reflective of that. However, a significant portion of the work is taken up by her theme and it is a major key as opposed to Hamlet’s theme. Perhaps there is a suggestion that to be ignorant is to be happy? … Or in fact to die was the better option? Liszt was heavily influenced by Wagner (death good) so this is not a very surprising reading. Also in the piece, the ‘tonic’/home key (Bm) is never fully established, which can be read in a number of ways - Hamlet’s constant moving about/thinking mind? the key/home is corrupted? Listen here: https://youtu.be/Ls-cfiob0qE

Shostakovich - Shostakovich wrote music for Akimov’s cynical 1932 production of Hamlet which played all the characters as drunk rather than mad, but this was soon shut down by the Soviets. He also wrote music for Kozintsev’s 1964 film: https://youtu.be/jK1IgQnLTic. (and the film is also on YouTube - https://youtu.be/OzN1isLYc_A ). Kozintsev was particularly emphatic about political themes in 'Hamlet', as opposed to Laurence Olivier’s production. The music that begins accompanying Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’ soliloquy is a meandering clarinet solo with pizz string accompaniment, the solo line evokes a sense of isolation and captures the way Hamlet plays with words and reworks words etc

Robert Schumann’s setting of Titus Ullrich’s ‘Herzeleid’ (Heartache) is a very typical example of the Romantics’ romanticisation of Ophelia. It is deeply melancholy and, I think, extremely beautiful. Listen: https://youtu.be/qRRIJwd1NEo
The English translation can be found here: https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/329

Also Brahms 5 Ophelia Lieder which are great to compare with Richard Strauss’ 6 Lieder Op. 67 in a decidedly later style, where Ophelia has far more dimension to her character and her troubled persona is more clear.

Hans Abrahamsen ‘let me tell you’ : https://youtu.be/FcveHFQ6Xpo
uses the 481 lines Ophelia speaks in the play
Hannigan asserts that the Ophelia of today, “has poignant wisdom. She has witnessed time, and looks back, in a sense, upon the uncertain role of women over the last 400 years.”

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