Seminario Letteratura & Musica, 1 – 26 novembre 2012

Il soundscape shakespeariano di Amleto

Prof. Enrico ReggianiUniversità Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Date Written Date Range First Published

Shakespeare’s plays

(conjectures of the best editors) (composition / performance)

Henry V 1599 1599 1600

Julius Caesar 1599 1598 - 1599 1623

Twelfth Night 1600 1600 - 1602 1623

Hamlet 1601 1599 – 1601 (?) 1603? (Q1)

Troilus and Cressida 1602 1601 - 1603 1609

Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary (1961)

Hamlet is like a sponge. Unless it is produced in a stylized or antiquarian fashion, it immediately absorbs all the problems of our time.

Bertolt Brecht, Kleines Organon für das Theater (1949)

The theatre should always be mindful of the needs of its time. Let us take, as an example, the old play of Hamlet. I believe that in the view of these bloody and gloomy times.

John Henry Newman, Poetry, with reference to Aristotle's Poetics (1829)

The philosophy of mind may equally be made subservient to poetry, as the philosophy of nature. It is a common fault to mistake a mere knowledge of the heart for poetical talent. Our greatest masters have known better;—they have subjected metaphysics to their art. In Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard, and Othello, the philosophy of mind is but the material of the poet. These personages are ideal; they are effects of the contact of a given internal character with given outward circumstances, the results of combined conditions determining (so to say) a moral curve of original and inimitable properties.

Alessandro Serpieri (1997)

Il linguaggio di questo dramma – spesso catalogato, e non certo a torto, come il dramma del pensiero – è fortemente fisico, nel senso che traspone i complessi strati del senso […] in termini non astratti ma concreti, corposi, tangibili.

The sonic environment. Technically, any portion of the sonic environment regarded as a field for study. The term may refer to actual environments, or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an environment.

Enter B & F, two sentinels (I,1,1-7)BARNARDO Who's there?FRANCISCO Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.BARNARDO Long live the king!FRANCISCO Bernardo?BARNARDO He.FRANCISCO You come most carefully upon your hour.BARNARDO 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

Soundscape ≠ Landscape

BERNARDO (I,1,153-171; S67)It was about to speak, when the cock crew.HORATIO And then it started like a guilty thingUpon a fearful summons. I have heard,The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throatAwake the god of day; and, at his warning,Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,The extravagant and erring spirit hiesTo his confine: and of the truth hereinThis present object made probation.MARCELLUS It faded on the crowing of the cock.Some say that ever 'gainst that season comesWherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,The bird of dawning singeth all night long:And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; […]HORATIO So have I heard and do in part believe it.

Natural Soundscape

HORATIO a Ophelia (III.2,238-239; S189)The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

OFELIA a Amleto (III.1,154-157; S171)And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,That suck’d the honey of his music vows,Now see that noble and most sovereign reasonLike sweet bells jangled out of time and harsh;…

Instrumental soundscape

III.2,325-351 (S195) on recordersHAMLET Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.

QUEEN to Laertes (IV.7,171-178; S263)Her clothes spread wide;And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;As one incapable of her own distress,Or like a creature native and induedUnto that element: but long it could not beTill that her garments, heavy with their drink,Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious layTo muddy death.

LAERTES to Ophelia (I.3,29-32; S86-89) Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,If with too credent ear you list his songs,Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure openTo his unmaster'd importunity.

Vocal soundscape

Grazie della vostra attenzione.