Love’s Labour’s Lost Suite, Op. 28a

Composer: FINZI, Gerald
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost Suite originated as incidental music Finzi wrote for a radio broadcast of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost in 1946. The orchestral suite, Op. 28a, consists of 10 movements:
    1. Introduction
    2. Moth
    3. Nocturne
    4. The Hunt
    5. Dance
    6. Quodlibet
    7. Soliloquy I
    8. Soliloquy II
    9. Soliloquy III
    10. Finale1
  • Finzi 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.2
  • Synopsis for Shakespeare’s play

Three Soliloquies:

  • The three “Soliloquies” were intended to be played while actors are delivering key speeches: the Lover’s Sonnets in Act IV, scene 3.3 The effect is much like cinematic underscoring of Finzi’s time (or of our own!).4
  • Each musical Soliloquy is assigned to a particular poem in the play:
    • Soliloquy 1: The King’s Poem
    • Soliloquy 2: Longaville’s Sonnet
    • Soliloquy 3: Dumaine’s Poem5 

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. Julia Sanders, Shakespeare and Music: Afterlives and Borrowings (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2007), 38.
  3. 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.
  4. Julia Sanders, Shakespeare and Music: Afterlives and Borrowings (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2007), 38.
  5. Bellman, “Gerald Finzi: Love’s Labour’s Lost, incidental music, suite for small orchestra, Op 28,” AllMusic.

Cut IDs

16345 42947