Play it again, Ham

"......and there is much music, excellent voice
in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak..."

                                                                 Hamlet        (III, ii)


Hamlet is steamed that his fair-weather friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are trying to manipulate him, spy on him, "play upon" him like one might play upon a pipe. Over the centuries, the scene has been frequently acted with Hamlet getting violently hot under the collar, even using the pipe to momentarily choke Guildenstern, who has proven himself no friend but a mere lapdog to the usurping King Claudius.

Shakespeare makes this scene a bit unusual in that he uses music as a metaphor not in its more commonplace associations with harmony, pleasure and peace but rather with conflict and betrayal. There are numerous instances in his works - in The Tempest, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, to name only several, where the playwright uses the sounds and imagery of music to convey a comforting sense of tranquility.

Pictured above, in the collection of Agecroft Hall, is a bellows-driven portable table organ, made in the early 17th century in Italy, that wondrous land of all things refined in the eyes of the Elizabethan English. Although the instrument retains its late Renaissance Italianate exterior, its inner workings were restored  during the Victorian era.

Presently placed in Agecroft's Great Parlor, it serves as a reminder that Shakespeare's age was well acquainted with the pleasures of what we've come to call chamber music. It was de rigueur for the accomplished Renaissance courtier to possess at least a modicum of musical skill.

Perhaps not surprising in an age when people had to do more to amuse themselves than simply turn on the telly.

From his day until ours, it's astonishing how much music has been inspired by the works of William Shakespeare, either directly or indirectly. Grove's Dictionary of Music lists about 800 musical works based on the playwright's plays, poems, and sonnets. Any list of the most highly regarded compositions would have to include Felix Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Giuseppe Verdi's operatic works Macbetto, Otello, and Falstaff  (with a libretto that combines the fat knight's best moments in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV); Beethoven's Coriolan overture. It has been said that it would be easier to list the few great composers who didn't write any works based on Shakespeare than to try to list all those who did.

In music, passion is the coinage of the realm. Who better to turn to than Shakespeare?