Theatre music

Theatre music refers to a wide range of

music composed or adapted for
performance in theatres. Genres of theatre
music include opera, ballet and several
forms of musical theatre, from pantomime
to operetta and modern stage musicals
and revues. Another form of theatre music
is incidental music, which, as in radio, film
and television, is used to accompany the
action or to separate the scenes of a play.
The physical embodiment of the music is
called a score, which includes the music
and, if there are lyrics, it also shows the
lyrics.

Arthur Sullivan's manuscript of the Act 1 finale of

The Yeomen of the Guard (1888)
History
Since the earliest days of the theatre,
music has played an important part in
stage drama. In Greek drama in the fifth
century BC, choric odes were written to be
chanted and danced between the spoken
sections of both tragedies and comedies.
Only fragments of the music have
survived.[1] Attempts to recreate the form
for revivals from the Renaissance to
modern times have branched in several
directions. Composers from Andrea
Gabrieli to Mendelssohn to Vaughan
Williams have composed chorus music for
productions of plays by Sophocles,
Aristophanes and others.[1] Playwrights
including Racine, Yeats and Brecht wrote
original plays in styles derived from
ancient drama, with sung commentaries
by a chorus or narrator. In late 16th
century Florence, attempts to revive
ancient Greek drama, with sung vocal
contributions, developed into the modern
genre of opera.[2] Folk theatre has always
deployed dance music and song.[1]
In the 16th and 17th centuries, theatre
music was performed during the action of
plays and as afterpieces. Christopher R.
Wilson, discussing Shakespeare's use of
music, lists "stage music" (fanfares to
introduce important characters or
accompany battle scenes), "magic music"
(as in the lullaby in A Midsummer Night's
Dream), "character music" (as in Twelfth
Night, illustrating the high, low, sad or
merry natures of the characters) and
"atmospheric music" (such as Ariel's
"Where the bee sucks", in The Tempest).[3]
By the early 18th century, music was firmly
established as part of practically all
theatrical performances in Europe,
whether of opera, dance, or spoken drama.
Theatres were built with orchestra pits,
and music was either specially composed
for the production or appropriated and
arranged from existing material.[1]

"Aquarius"

A chorus from the 1967 musical Hair.

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The writer Roger Savage notes in Grove's
Dictionary of Music and Musicians: "The
classic forms of Asian theatre from India
to Japan rely heavily on music, as do the
dramatic rituals of sub-Saharan Africa and
of the indigenous peoples of the
Americas."[1] In Western theatre genres,
Savage writes that music features
importantly in medieval liturgical drama,
ballet de cour, ballet d'action, classical
ballet, modern dance, comédie-ballet,
semi-opera, 18th-century pantomime,
ballad opera, Singspiel, opéra comique,
Victorian burlesque, music hall, vaudeville,
variety show, operetta, Edwardian musical
comedy, the modern musical including
rock musicals (listen to the example, at
right, from Hair), and other forms of
musical theatre.[1] In common with radio,
cinema and television, the theatre has long
made use of incidental music to
accompany spoken drama.[4]

See also
Show tune
Aria
Sheet music
 Film score
Theatre Musicians Association

Bibliography
Green, Stanley. Encyclopedia of the
Musical Theatre. New York: Dodd, Mead,
1976

References
1. Savage, Roger. "Incidental music" , Grove
Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
accessed 13 August 2012 (subscription
required)
 2. Arnold, Denis, et al. "Opera" , The Oxford
Companion to Music, ed. Alison Latham,
Oxford Music Online, accessed 13 August
2012
3. Wilson, Christopher R. "Shakespeare,
William" , Grove Music Online, Oxford Music
Online, accessed 13 August 2012
(subscription required)

4. Kennedy, Michael, ed. "Incidental Music" ,

The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed.
rev., Oxford Music Online, accessed 13
August 2012 (subscription required)

External links
 International Music Score Library
Project (Wikipedia article) — A public
domain music library featuring original
scores scanned to PDF.
The European Library — digital images
of the most important pieces of music
published in Europe, free access.
Project Gutenberg

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