Of the tragedies, Macbeth, for some strange reason, is more associated with incidental music than any of the others. "The celebrated music introduced into the tragedy of Macbeth, commonly attributed to Matthew Locke," as Novello describes it in his edition, is associated in the minds of a great number of people with Shakespeare's play. I have known the work since I was a child. It used to be very popular at village and school breaking-up concerts. I never could understand its village popularity, but I know boys liked some of the strong words in it, and sang them with great gusto. It was sung in nearly all stage productions until about twenty years ago, and is very much missed by local choristers when not performed with the piece on tour. I remember how very disappointed the local chorus-master was to find that Sir Frank Benson was not using it in his later years. The chorus-master thought its absence would spoil the whole play. I have been through the text of Davenant's version, to which Locke wrote the music, and can discover only four consecutive lines and some odd words of Shakespeare's in the whole work. How it persisted through all those years is a great mystery. The music is not even interesting. The four lines immortalised are:—
Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.
For many years this music was falsely attributed to Purcell, but musical historians have finally cleared Purcell of all connection with it; though long ago he got even with Locke by writing an elegy on his death. Daniel Purcell, uncle of Henry, also wrote some Macbeth music.
John Eccles wrote music for a revival at Drury Lane in 1696; and Richard Leveridge, composer of "The Roast Beef of Old England" (a song which should be popular if revived now) and "All in the Downs," also wrote music for the second act in 1708.
To come to more modern times, Sullivan's music is perhaps the best. Composed for Sir Henry Irving's great production at the Lyceum, it was an instant success. The overture, a very elaborate work, is often done on concert platforms. The whole of the music is most effective, and perfectly suited to the play. Subsequently, Sir Henry gave readings of the play on tour with Ellen Terry, for which they travelled a full band of sixty performers for Sullivan's music.
Michael Balling, one time musical director for Sir Frank Benson, and subsequently for Cosima Wagner at Bayreuth, where he conducted The Ring and Parsival, composed some very clever music for his old chief's production, very modern in feeling and permeated with Scottish atmosphere: the Witch music being very grim and mysterious, and in the cauldron scene very clearly bringing in a suggestion of Locke's "Mingle, mingle." The Banquet music (strings only) is bagpipey, and the marches for Macbeth and Macduff are stirring and in strong contrast, while there is fine battle music for the close. Unfortunately, he wrote no overture or entr'actes.
Several operas have been founded on this theme, the most notable being Verdi's Macbetto, produced on March 17, 1847, at the Pergola, Florence. Unfortunately, Verdi was not so lucky in his librettist as he was in the cases of Otello and Falstaff, when he had the invaluable assistance of Arrigo Boito, perhaps the greatest librettist who ever lived, with the exception of Wagner. Piave's book is not very inspiring. The opera was never a success. Verdi could not see Macbeth as a tenor, and bravely made him a dramatic baritone. The Italian could not understand a grand opera in which the hero was not a tenor; and the only tenor, Macduff, comes on late in the evening. It is a great pity, as there is much fine music in the work, though very little of Shakespeare's Macbeth gets through. The very Italian singing and dancing witches seem out of place on a blasted heath, and the ballet of Scottish retainers savours of a warmer clime than that of the North of Scotland. Still, the work should be revived.
Hippolyte André Jean Baptiste Chelard was born in Paris in 1789, and subsequently won the Grand Prix de Rome. He was one of those Frenchmen, like Berlioz later, whose music was thought little of in Paris but was much admired in Munich and London. The adaptation of this play for the French lyric stage was not suitable, especially at the Opera House, where the action and words are the most important things to the public; and Chelard found that his harmonies, simple enough to our modern ears, were too complex for the Parisian audience. He left Paris and went to Munich, where he revised the whole opera most carefully, and made a great success of it; the result being that he became Court Capellmeister and dedicated the score to the Bavarian King, his patron. The rest of his life he divided between failure in Paris and success abroad, again very like his so much greater compatriot, Hector Berlioz. In this opera, for the first time, so far as I know, the witches are given names—Elsie, Nona, and Groem. I think the last a good name for a witch, but I should not dream of calling Shakespeare's first or second witch Elsie or Nona. I don't think Rouget de Lisle, the librettist, better known as the poet and composer of the "Marseillaise," ought to have done this. The opera is in three acts, and opens with the conventional overture of the period—as composed by second-rate musicians, quite harmless; but one expects something more from a Macbeth overture. The Witches have some effective trios, some of them unaccompanied; and one of their motives was used by Liszt, who knew Chelard at Weimar, and taken from Liszt by Wagner for use in the Walküre. It comes quite as a surprise in its original place in this Macbeth. Macbeth's march is fine and sombre, and the ballet music is quite exciting. One number is marked tempo d' inglese, though why a Franco-Scottish dance, produced in Germany, should be in English time I cannot understand. The choruses are broadly written, and the music, though mostly very florid, is often dramatic. There is a tremendously difficult and florid song for mezzo-soprano in the third act for a character called Moina, a friend of Lady Macbeth, and the prelude to this act is a long duet-cadenza for harp and flute. It has nothing to do with the plot, and must have been put in to please two friends who were excellent players or had valuable patrons. The librettist does not stick too closely to Shakespeare's story; in fact, he gives Duncan a daughter, the Moina just mentioned, and introduces the Sleep-walking scene before Duncan's death. When the opera was performed in London in 1832, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient, for so long Wagner's favourite singer, actress, and companion, sang the part of Lady Macbeth.
An amusing story is told of Chelard's Macbeth by FitzGerald, Tenderer into English verse of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. In one of his letters to the celebrated actress, Fanny Kemble, niece of John Philip of that name, he writes: "You may know there is a French opera of Macbeth, by Chelard. This was being played at the Dublin theatre—Viardot, I think, the heroine. However that may be, the curtain drew up for the Sleep-walking scene; Doctor and Nurse were there, while a long mysterious symphony went on—till a voice from the gallery called out to the leader of the band, Levey—'Whist, Lavy, my dear—tell us now—is it a boy or a girl?'"