SHAKESPEARE ON MUSIC

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

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On the upcoming occasion of Shakespeare’s Anniversary of both his birth and death (April 23), I found these quotes from the writer who wrote the most musical language of any of them all.

Here they are, with contemporary punctuation and spelling.

 

“Orpheus with his lute made trees and the mountains that freeze bow themselves when he did sing. To his music plants and flowers ever sprung, as sun and showers, there (they) had made a lasting spring. Everything that heard him play, even the billows of the sea, hung their heads and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, killing care and grief of heart fall asleep or hearing die.” (Henry VIII, III, i)

 

“Music often hath such a charm to make good and good provoke to harm.” (Merchant of Venice, IV, i)

 

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here we will sit and let the sounds of music creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony.” (Merchant of Venice, V, i)

 

“The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are as dull as night, and his affections as dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.” (Merchant of Venice, V, i)

 

“How sour sweet music is when time is broke and no proportion kept! So it is in the music of men’s lives.” (Richard II, V, v)

 

“How silver-sweet lovers’ tongues by night, (are) like softest music to attending ears!” (Romeo and Juliet, II, ii)

 

 

 

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”