Love’s Labours Lost, Op. 28: Three Soliloquies for small orchestra

Composer: FINZI, Gerald
  • These “Soliloquies” are movements from Finzi’s Love’s Labour’s Lost orchestral suite, op.28a.1
  • This suite originated as incidental music Finzi wrote for a radio broadcast of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost in 1946.2 He also adapted the music for an outdoor performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost in 1953, adding longer interludes to allow for actor movement and scene changes without a curtain.3
  • These “Soliloquies” were intended to be played while actors are delivering key speeches: the Lover’s Sonnets in Act IV scene 3.4 The effect is much like cinematic underscoring of Finzi’s time (or of our own!)5
  • Each musical Soliloquy is assigned to a particular poem in the play: 6
    • Soliloquy 1: The King’s Poem
    • Soliloquy 2: Longaville’s Sonnet
    • Soliloquy 3: Dumaine’s Poem

Sources

  1. Diana McVeagh, “Finzi, Gerald,”Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 1, 2019,   https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009689.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Julia Sanders, Shakespeare and Music: Afterlives and Borrowings (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2007), 38.
  4. Hector Bellman, “Gerald Finzi: Love’s Labours Lost, incidental music, suite for small orchestra, Op 28,” AllMusic, accessed October 1, 2019, https://www.allmusic.com/composition/loves-labours-lost-incidental-music-suite-for-small-orchestra-op-28-mc0002361253.
  5. Julia Sanders, Shakespeare and Music: Afterlives and Borrowings(Cambridge, UK: Polity Press,2007), 38.
  6. Bellman, “Gerald Finzi: Love’s Labours Lost, incidental music, suite for small orchestra, Op 28,” AllMusic.

Cut IDs

16345