Incidental Music for “The Tempest”

Composer: LOCKE, Matthew
  • Locke composed this suite of incidental music for an April 1674 adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.1 The production was adapted by William Davenant and John Dryden.2
  • Locke collaborated frequently with dramatist and poet William Davenant, writing music for several of Davenant’s original plays and adaptations performed by his London-based theater troupe, the Duke of York’s Company.3
  • Locke composed most of the instrumental music for the Davenant-Dryden Tempest, but other composers also contributed to this massive production.4
  • Locke’s music for The Tempest opens with a dramatic “curtain tune” depicting the eponymous tempest, with lots of tempo and dynamic instructions in the score (such score instructions were a rarity at the time).5

Sources

  1. Peter Holman, “Locke [Lock], Matthew,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed January 6, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000016848.
  2. Curtis Price, “Locke, Matthew (opera),” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed June 6, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000007854.
  3. Holman, “Locke [Lock], Matthew,” Grove Music Online.
  4. Price, “Locke, Matthew (opera),” Grove Music Online.
  5. Ibid.

Cut IDs

48303