Favourite Shakespeare-inspired overture/tone poem

[Maestro267]

Seeing as it's Shakespeare Day today, how about a poll to determine the forum's favourite tone poem or overture inspired by the Bard...

(For the record, I've included most of the works I'm aware of. But for those who know more, there's an "Other" option.)

[aligreto]

I have opted for R Strauss: Macbeth. I think that the dark world of betrayal and murder are wonderfully portrayed in this amazing sound world created by Strauss.

[Sergeant Rock]

Dvorak Othello. Rowicki/LSO is the best version I've ever heard.

Sarge

[vandermolen]

Frank Bridge: 'There is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook' (1927):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1A4IdQSEv08

[Jo498]

Of those mentioned, I'd go for Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, but if one counts Berlioz' Romeo and Juliet as tone poem (or the quasi-symphony that can be made with 4 or 5 orchestral movements) I'd take that one.

Admittedly, I am not sure I ever heard Dvorak's Othello, pretty sure never heard the Smetana and while I must have heard the others on the list, the only one I remember well is Tchaikovsky's R&J

[Luke]

Yes, without doubt I'd go for the Berlioz too, specifically the orchestral movements. The Scene d'amour... It's not easy to think of anything else as beautiful as that piece - it seems to transcend music itself, this piece, in the way the music seems to actually be perfumed with the scent of the Capulet's garden at night; in the way the distant voices of revellers fade away down the streets, suggesting space and depth; in the way the passion inherent in the glorious arch of the main subject is throbbingly restrained by mutes; in the the way the instruments seem to be straining to speak (the cello/wind recitatives which so closely parallel the dialogue of the balcony scene itself).

[North Star]

Well, if we're counting the Berlioz, we might as well count Sibelius' music for The Tempest. Thankfully I can listen to both and don't need to choose one.

[Maestro267]

I don't count the Berlioz or Sibelius here. These are all one-movement overtures or tone/symphonic poems. The Mendelssohn is included because the overture was composed well before the incidental music, as a standalone piece.

[Jo498]

A major piece that is missing is Elgar's "Falstaff"
Of Ouvertures while not composed for Shakespeare's play, Beethoven's "Coriolan" was later often associated with it (because Collin's play was quickly forgotten) and deserves honorable mention. And the brilliant and comic Ouverture to Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor" (as good as any by Rossini or Suppé, and the opera is quite good as well, if somewhat quaint).

I just checked and apparently do not have Dvorak's Othello ouverture in my collection, only Hussites, Carnival and "My Home"...

[North Star]

A major piece that is missing is Elgar's "Falstaff"

That's what my vote for 'other' stands for.

[some guy]

OK, but there's still Berlioz that you can count:

Marche funèbre pour la dernière scène d'Hamlet

Tempest

King Lear

The overture to Béatrice et Bénédict, though I never listen to that by itself. There's a whole opera that follows it, and it's smashing.

[Karl Henning]

The overture to Béatrice et Bénédict, though I never listen to that by itself. There's a whole opera that follows it, and it's smashing.

He's right, you know.

[Karl Henning]

Of those mentioned, I'd go for Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, but if one counts Berlioz' Romeo and Juliet as tone poem (or the quasi-symphony that can be made with 4 or 5 orchestral movements) I'd take that one.

Yes, without doubt I'd go for the Berlioz too, specifically the orchestral movements. The Scene d'amour... It's not easy to think of anything else as beautiful as that piece - it seems to transcend music itself, this piece, in the way the music seems to actually be perfumed with the scent of the Capulet's garden at night; in the way the distant voices of revellers fade away down the streets, suggesting space and depth; in the way the passion inherent in the glorious arch of the main subject is throbbingly restrained by mutes; in the the way the instruments seem to be straining to speak (the cello/wind recitatives which so closely parallel the dialogue of the balcony scene itself).

I'm with you both.

[some guy]

 *

I'd also like to put in a(nother) plug for Berlioz' Roméo et Juliette, that is for the whole symphony. It is a cunningly constructed work, the more impressive for pushing beyond the borders of what "symphony" could mean. It even pushes beyond the borders of what the first symphony does, which was a kind of pushy piece itself, in a manner of speaking. And while little bits and pieces of it can be nice to listen to by themselves, I guess, it seems a bit like reading only chapters 17-20, 37, and 42 of a novel. There may be some really smashing writing in those chapters, but the novel is a whole thing, designed to be read from start to finish.

*this is for the "he's right you know" comment, not the "both" comment. I mean, blimey, why would I "say" to the "both" comment?

[Karl Henning]

 

[Spineur]

I voted "other", that is Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet suite, originally composed as a Ballet music.  The 10 pieces for the piano Op.75, is a later adaptation.

As a frenchman, the particularity about Shakespeare theater is that most of the characters transform themselves in the course of the play.  At the beginning of each play, they are "characters in being".  Very different from french plays where most of the characters stays the way they are from the beginning to the end  reacting to the events and "coup de theatre" that unfold during the play.

There are so many fabulous musical adaptations of Shakespeare works, the most spectacular and impressive being found in the Operatic repertoire.  But this would be for another pool !!!