Hamlet – Incidental Music Op.67a for soloists and orchestra, excerpts (1891)
This score was written in two weeks for a French-language benefit production of Shakespeare’s five-act tragedy at the Mikhailovski Theatre, Petersburg 9/21 February 1891. Undertaken at the request of, and as a favour to, Tchaikovsky’s friend Lucien Guitry (in the title role for would be his last appearance on the Russian stage), the music re-cycled certain old material, including the Hamlet overture-fantasia (Overture), the alla tedesca second movement of the Third Symphony (CD8, track 5), Kupava’s Lament from The Snow Maiden and the 1884 ‘Samarin’ Elegy for strings (9). Tchaikovsky had long been drawn to the story, his brother Modest having proposed it to him in 1876. ‘Hamlet is very much to my taste, but it’s devilishly difficult’. Despite being ‘well received’, the incidental music seems nevertheless to have been a chore. ‘Hamlet is coming along. But it is such unpleasant work’. Gauk’s performance cuts three of the sixteen numbers:
1 III/ii Fanfares 1 (‘Sound a flourish’) 2 (‘The dumb show enters’), Melodrama (Poison Scene enactment); IV/v Ophelia’s Second Scene (‘And will he not come again?’); (12) V Entr’acte (Churchyard). Overture (Hamlet Op 67, abbreviated); 1 Act I/i Melodrama (Elsinore. A platform before the Castle. Enter Ghost); 2 I/iv Fanfare (‘A Flourish of Trumpets’); 3 I/iv Melodrama (Enter Ghost. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us!’); 4 I/v Melodrama (The Castle. Another part of the fortifications. Enter Ghost and Hamlet. ‘I am thy father’s Spirit,/Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,/And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,/Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature/Are burnt and purg’d away’); 5 Act II Entracte, prelude to Scene i (A room in the house of Polonius [Lord Chamberlain]. Enter Ophelia [daugher to Polonius]); 6 II/ii Fanfare (A room in the Castle. Flourish. Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, [Attendants]); 7 Act III Entracte, prelude to Scene i (Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern [two courtiers], and Lords); 9 Act IV Entr-acte, prelude to Scene i (Enter King and Queen, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern); 10 IV/v Ophelia’s ‘Mad Scene’ [soprano] (‘He is dead and gone, lady,/He is dead and gone;/At his head a grass-green turf,/At his heels a stone’); 13 Act V/i Gravedigger’s [Clown’s] Song [baritone] (Elsinore. A churchyard. ‘In youth when I did love, did love,/Methought it was very sweet;/To contract, O, the time for, ah, my behove,/O, methought there was nothing meet.); 14 V/i Funeral March (Enter [priests with ‘the fair’ Ophelia’s] coffin, King, Queen, Laertes [son to Polonius], with Lords attendant); 15 V/ii Fanfare (A hall in the Castle. ‘Drum; trumpets sound’); 16 V/ii Final March (‘Let four captains/Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage;/For he was likely, had he been put on,/To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage/The soldiers’ music and the rites of war/Speak loudly for him’).
01. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – I. Overture
02. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – II. Moderato assai
03. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – III. Allegro vivo
04. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – IV. Moderato assai
05. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – V. Allegro giusto ed agitato
06. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – VI. Allegro semplice
07. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – VII. Fanfare
08. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – VIII. Andante quasi allegretto
09. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – IX. Andante non troppo
10. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – X. Andantino ‘Elsinore’, Mad Scene
11. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – XI. Andantino
12. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – XII. Marcia. Moderato assai
13. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – XIII. Allegro giusto
14. Incidental Music for Soprano, Baritone & Orchestra, ‘Hamlet’, Op.67a – XIV. Allegro risoluto ma non troppo
USSR State Radio & TV Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Gauk
15. Tone Poem for Orchestra, ‘Fatum’, Op.posth.77
Grand Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Gauk