Shakespeare's Influence | Shakespeare in Music
Composers have long been inspired by the beauty of Shakespeare's lyrics, by the strength of his drama, and by the richness of his characters. Shakespearean song settings abound, operas proliferate, and instrumental music continues to be composed. Two recent catalogs (both 1964) of Shakespearean music list, for example, 124 settings of "It was a lover and his lass," fourteen operas based on Hamlet, twenty-four operas based on Romeo and Juliet, and thirty-six instrumental works based on The Tempest. To cover a subject of such magnitude with analytic and historical...
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