I mention it occasionally. When I'm not writing, I work as a music director/arranger for educational and community theater groups. Yesterday, the posts were lacking because I was working at a Shakespeare festival a local school puts on every year. This is the first time in a few years that I was able to work directly with a student on original material. I was told there was a student with a lovely soprano voice who couldn't participate in the school's musical. I told the director that I had just found a book of music arrangements that historians believe were actually used at or around the time of Shakespeare's plays being originally performed. I settled in on a series of songs for Ophelia in Hamlet.
The concept was to turn a whole lot of music (one song alone had eight verses) into a cohesive song that high school students could relate to. It would have period flourishes but be structured like a typical pop song. The arrangement is linked below.
The version in the book was a very straightforward application of British folk song "Walsingham." In fact, some of Ophelia's lyrics in the play are lifted from the song.
How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff And his sandal shoon.
He is dead and gone lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf At his heels a stone.
This is not, however, what my student sang. I used a combination of Ophelia's lines from the play with the actual verses of "Walsingham" to create a musical narrative of her mental state regarding Hamlet. In this adaptation, he is two people to her: her lost lover and the stranger she knows now.
Met you not with my true love by the way as you came? How should I know your true love that have met, many, a one?
The arrangement in the book claimed it was written for "pianoforte," though I believe that it was quite clearly written for guitar or, more appropriately, lute. It is a slow moving part, split equally between minor chords and moving harmonic lines. Though playable on a piano, they make more sense in the context of a string instrument.
I did not, however, use their exact arrangement. I moved transferred it more to a Classical style than the freer arrangement used in the original composition. This allowed me to play with variations in movement to further separate the two perceptions of Ophelia.
I'm particularly fond of one decision I made that I wasn't sure would work at all. There was a third song not based on "Walsingham" in the book. However, it was written in the same key--A minor--and technically was the same meter--6/4. Thematically, it worked. It was Ophelia stating "no no, he is dead," regarding Hamlet. An excellent chorus for a sad little song.
However, it had a distinct waltz feel. The other two variations of the song could either be viewed as slow waltzes or almost death marches in 6/4 time. There's a great sense of tension between the verses and the chorus, with the little bit of piano flourish used as a bridge.
Ophelia' Song by Robert Gannon
And that's the kind of work I do when I'm not writing here, writing somewhere else, ghostwriting, or editing.