Sullivan wrote a very elaborate masque for the Calvert production at Manchester, much of which is published. There is a long and very Viennese valse, full of melody and grace, and a grotesque Dance for Pierrots and Harlequins, with a highly comic cadenza for the bassoon. The Bounce is the most familiar number, as it is frequently played as an entr'acte in the theatre. It is very attractive, but not at all a bourrée on the old accepted lines. There is also a melodious serenata in the rarely used key of E flat minor. These few numbers are all that have been printed.
Engelbert Humperdinck wrote music for Reinhardt's production of this play in Berlin at the Deutsches Theater. This version of the play begins with a barcarolle sung by a tenor behind the act-drop as the curtain goes up. This, oddly enough, is sung in Italian, and the words are not by Shakespeare. Portia is discovered playing the lute in the second scene, cleverly imitated by Humperdinck on the harp. Before the second act is a very stately saraband. For the Prince of Morocco's entrance there is no attempt at Eastern local colour. Obviously the Prince in this version did not bring his own band, and trusted to Portia's private orchestra for his effects, and they did not know his national anthem; so he only gets an ordinary flourish, two trumpets and kettledrums. The same thing happens to Aragon, only the fanfare is different though in the same key. The march is very wild, working up to a great climax, and then dying away to nothing. "Tell me where is fancy bred" is set as a duet for soprano and contralto with female chorus, and makes a beautiful number. After this there is nothing till the last act. The curtain goes up to exquisite music, which lasts till the end of the play. It is very lightly scored, strings, harps, solo violin, and horns, and every word can be heard through it: so it makes a perfect ending for the whole play. I have never read of this music being performed in England, but I can very strongly recommend it to any future producer of The Merchant of Venice.
For Mr Arthur Bourchier's production at the Garrick Frederick Rosse composed a great deal of music, some of which is published. It is very good stage music, and admirably suited to the production it was written for. There is a prelude to the first act, ending with a sort of barcarolle; then a melodious intermezzo, entitled "Portia"; an Oriental march for Morocco (evidently the Prince brought his own band for this production); a second prelude, rather sickly sentimental; a good stirring march for the Doge; and a pretty setting of "Tell me where is fancy bred" for contralto, baritone, and harp—very serviceable and useful music all of it. But somehow the play itself does not seem to get the best out of musicians.
Gabriel Fauré, the distinguished French musician, who composed the fine incidental music for Mrs Patrick Campbell's production of Pelléas el Mélisande, also wrote incidental music to Edmond Haraucourt's version of The Merchant of Venice, called by him Shylock. There are not many numbers, but all of them are interesting. The first is a prelude and serenade for light baritone to words of M. Haraucourt's; very graceful and melodious, but unconnected with Shakespeare's plot. The words begin, "Oh les filles, venez les filles aux voix douces." The first entr'acte, in march time, opens with trumpets. There is a flowing trio founded on the same subject, and then back to the beginning for the close—a very pleasant little interlude. Now comes a so-called madrigal, not in the English sense of a contrapuntal number in several vocal parts, but a very pretty sentimental song, the words, again by M. Haraucourt, "Celle que j'aime a de beauté," being charmingly set for baritone once more. The "Épithalme" or "Bridal Song" is for orchestra only; it is a solemn adagio movement, almost too sombre for such a comedy as M. Haraucourt makes of The Merchant. The love music is in nocturne form, and is chiefly a duet for solo violin and 'cello. The last number, headed "Finale," is a brilliant quasi-scherzo movement in triple time—rather in the manner of a valse-scherzo. This is the longest and most elaborate section of the suite, finishing with a well-developed coda. Altogether Fauré's Shylock is an interesting, though rather slight, addition to our very scanty amount of music for this play.
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
It is a curious thing that, though critics are unanimous in saying that The Merry Wives of Windsor is the weakest comedy Shakespeare ever wrote, it has directly inspired one opera of first-class importance—Verdi's Falstaff, by some considered the finest comic opera in the world; also Nicolai's Merry Wives of Windsor, a first-rate opera in the second division, as it were, still constantly played in Germany, and here by the Carl Rosa Opera Company; and Balfe's comic opera Falstaff, produced at Her Majesty's, July 19, 1838. This work is not so easy to place; it is essentially Italian music, and shows how wonderfully adaptable Balfe's genius was.
Braham, Parry, and Horn wrote numbers for a musical version of this play, which was produced in London in 1823, but I cannot trace the score nor any of the numbers.
We will take Balfe's opera first. There was a fine cast for the first production—Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, with Lablache as Falstaff: so the work had every opportunity, as far as singers were concerned, but it never passed into the opera repertory, and few people now have heard of it. Perhaps the libretto by S. M. Maggioni may have helped Falstaff into its present oblivion. The work opens with a conventional overture, a slow introduction and a quick second part, getting quicker towards the end—the sort of overture that would suit almost any comedy-opera as well as The Merry Wives. After the overture comes a duet for Page and Ford; then Falstaff's entrance and song. It is impossible to follow the plot clearly, as there is a great deal of spoken dialogue; but all the principals have very "fat" bits. The composer was obviously writing for singers whom he knew well, and he did not bother much about character, colour, Windsor, or Queen Elizabeth's time; everything is perfectly vocal, and the melodies are quite pleasant.