An interesting opera on this subject is Alexandre Stadtfeldt's lyric drama Hamlet, book by Jules Guillaume. The composer, a Belgian, was a distinguished pupil of the Brussels Conservatoire, winning the Prix de Rome in 1849. As he was unable to produce his opera in his native country, he had the libretto translated into German, and the work was performed with success at Bonn in 1881, and subsequently at Weimar.
Hamlet, Franz Liszt's great symphonic poem, was one of the latest of the series, being composed in 1859. It was first performed at Sondershausen in 1886. The work is planned on a large scale, and is very difficult to perform. So far as I can find out, it is the only Shakespearian work of the composer, but it is a very important one. The main key of the work is B minor, and the greater part of it passionate and agitato. The prelude opens slowly, sombrely, and piano, with occasional sudden crescendos and sforzatos, and significant tremolo string passages, marked "stormy" in the score. Then comes the principal theme, a quick, passionate subject, given out by the violins, and presently taken up by the rest of the orchestra. This is quickly followed by a strongly marked theme, allotted to the full strings in unison, and these subjects are developed until the Ophelia music is heard. This, naturally, is very different from the preceding music, being slow, piano, with a violin solo accompanied by piano wood wind. It is soon broken in upon by the Hamlet music, first on the bassoons, marked "ironical" in the score, and later repeated by the rest of the wood wind. One fresh theme is introduced, also agitato, and this thematic material suffices for the composer. After much excitement and working up, we get a return to the slow opening, followed by an à funèbre episode, founded on the Hamlet motive, which finishes the whole movement. The end is very tragic, and the whole a notable and interesting addition to our modern Shakespearian music.
Tschaikowsky's Phantasie Overture, Hamlet, is dedicated to Edvard Grieg. It is really a great work, full of dignity, strength, and beauty. The twelve o'clock effect is curiously given by twelve sforzato semibreves on muted horns, beginning pianissimo, and swelling up until the twelfth note is given triple fortissimo. The first subject is energetic, obviously for Hamlet, with his mind very much made up; but gradually the theme gets more and more undecided and vacillating, and leads to the second theme, Ophelia, a beautiful and tender subject given out by the oboe. The whole development is long, complicated, and interesting; towards the end a strange quasi-funèbre theme is given out on the brass and drums, closely followed by a long passage for full orchestra, marked triple fortissimo, culminating in a chord for the wind marked with five f's. Then comes a very solemn and dignified ending, strings muted and everything dying away to a whisper. This work is one of the finest commentaries on the play ever written.
Berlioz's contributions to Hamlet music consist of two numbers: a ballad for two female voices, entitled "La mort d'Ophélie," done into English by the Rev. J. Troutbeck under the title "Ophelia"; and a funeral march for the last scene in the play. The words of the ballad are by Berlioz, and are a description of Ophelia's last hours, her wandering by the brook making fantastic wreaths, with many very ingenious references to Shakespeare's scene so beautifully described by the Queen in the play. Naturally, the music is throughout exquisitely sad, and is beautifully descriptive of Ophelia's death. It is not at all difficult to perform, and very melodious; I cannot understand why Ladies' Choral Societies do not take it up.
The "Marche Funèbre" is not in ordinary march form. There are no trios in it; it is all the development of one theme. It begins pianissimo in A minor, and ends pianissimo in the same key. It has a monotonous bass throughout, and Berlioz uses all kinds of drums with his usual weird skill. The impression of many men marching slowly and solemnly must be realised by even the most unimaginative hearer, and it is a work that requires no programme. It tells its own story absolutely to anyone who cares to hear it. There is a tremendous fortissimo triumphant effect in the middle, the bass stalking up and down in slow dotted notes, while the rest of the orchestra sustains a slow, heavy melody. After a terrific triple forte effect, there is a dead silence; then a long, deep, sustained note; then occur about twenty bars of the most hopelessly despairing music I have ever heard, and then the drums again take up their dreadful figure; and so the whole march winds to a close. It does not end on any note of hope. There is no thought of a glorious resurrection—all is lost, hopeless, despairing. It would make a splendid entr'acte played before the last act of Hamlet, and would put the audience into exactly the proper state of mind. The march should be oftener used on occasions of national mourning.
Edward Alexander MacDowell, the best-known American composer, wrote two symphonic poems for orchestra entitled Hamlet and Ophelia. These works are dedicated jointly to Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. The composer was born in New York in 1861, but studied mostly in France and Germany, afterwards teaching at the Conservatoires of Darmstadt and Wiesbaden. In these two poems there is no attempt to tell any story. The Hamlet one is naturally more excited than the Ophelia; but as there seem to be no Ghost, King, or any of the accustomed secondary characters, I presume that the composer means exactly what he says, viz. that the one represents his conception of Hamlet, and the other that of Ophelia. The result is two excellent, if rather dull, works. The theme for French horn at the beginning of the Ophelia poem is the most striking in either of the pieces, and is the only melody that stands out at all. It is also very skilfully developed.
Edward German's symphonic poem, Hamlet, dedicated to Hans Richter, the conductor, was first produced at the Birmingham Festival of 1897. The composer, in a preface to the printed copy, says: "In this symphonic poem the composer has endeavoured to depict the character of Hamlet as stern and relentless, yet in this mood alternately hesitating and impetuous. The influence of this character may be said to dominate the entire work. Hamlet's love for Ophelia is overpowered by his doubts, his distrust of the Queen, and his determination to avenge the murder of his father. His fury reaches its height as he stabs the King. The poison which Hamlet has received from the weapon of Laertes now begins to take effect, and hence to the end the music is descriptive of the ebbing away of his life." This gives the reader a very fair idea of Edward German's work. It is planned on a large scale for a large orchestra, and is quite the most important serious work that Mr German has given us. It opens with a picture of night, sombre and serious, followed by the inevitable bell tolling twelve. Then a short agitato episode leads to a bold theme entitled "Hamlet" in the score. Shortly afterwards come a very pleading Ophelia theme for clarinet and harp, and a fine pomposo march theme for the King. All these are freely worked out, and in the middle of this development occurs a very touching episode called "Death of Ophelia." Mr German, following his own programme, works now for his great climax, the killing of Claudius by Hamlet, after which the music grows slower and slower and more and more piano till it finally dies away.
It is a beautiful and ambitious work, and well worthy of the colossal theme that it is founded upon. It is a great credit to British musicianship, and I only wish it could be heard oftener.
I have frequently wished that Grieg had composed music for Hamlet. In several productions I have heard numbers from his Sigurd Jörsalfar suite, played as entr'actes, and sometimes as incidental music, and they always sounded exactly in keeping with the feeling and atmosphere of the play. I have just discovered the reason. His master and fellow-countryman, Niels Gade, had composed a Hamlet overture, and Grieg, unlike some of our modern English composers, who freely set poems and stories immortalised by Handel, was a very modest man, and left his master alone in the field, to our great loss.
Some time ago Sir Frederick Bridge unearthed in the Pepys Library at Cambridge a strange setting of the soliloquy "To be, or not to be," for bass voice, viol de gamba, and lute. Pepys is supposed to have had the music specially composed for him, but, unfortunately, the composer's name is still unknown. "It is a broad, declamatory setting" (says The Times), "something in the manner adopted by Pelham Humphrey and Blow in their sacred recitatives; and though it does not differ from a great deal of contemporary music, it is as much more effective as it is less pretentious than the strange setting of the same words in Thomas's version. There is a vague reference to this in the Diary: 'Dined at home very well, and spent all the afternoon with my wife within doors, and getting a speech out of Hamlet, "To be, or not to be," without book.'"