King Lear: Incidental music

William Shakespeare (R)

1.Introduction and Ballad of Cordelia  2.Return from the Hunt  3-12.The Fool's Songs  13.Finale of Act One  14.Approach of the Storm  15.Scene on the Steppe  16.The Blinding of Gloucester  17.The Military Camp  18.March  19-23.Fanfares


As the Second World War loomed, and the Stalinist regime grew ever more violent and repressive, Shostakovich’s music – even his theatre music – grew darker.


This ‘King Lear’ music, which was written for a 1940 stage production by the famous film-director Grigori Kozintsev, is quite different from the parody and irony of the earlier op.32 ‘Hamlet’ music. In its starkness and sombre drama it perhaps reflects Shostakovich’s recent experience of reorchestrating Musorgsky’s epic opera ‘Boris Godunov’.


In addition to a variety of orchestral numbers, this suite also includes two vocal numbers. One is ‘Cordelia’s ballad’ for mezzo-soprano and orchestra forms the second part of the opening ‘Prelude’ (as the vocal line is doubled by wind-instruments throughout, this number may be done without voice). The other is the miniature cycle of ‘10 Songs of the Fool’, for bass and orchestra, which is fairly frequently given as an effective concert-work in its own right. These bitter-sweet songs make surprising listening to to British and American audiences as Shostakovich has used the well-known tune ‘Jingle Bells’ as the principal melody.


Note by Gerard McBurney