We are all familiar with the famous Shakespeare in music settings. Tchaikovsky's, Prokofiev's, Berlioz's and Gounod's very different re-tellings of Romeo and Juliet all come to mind. To these well known four I can add a ballet by Constant Lambert and incidental music by Edward German and another overture, by the German Joachim Raff. Tchaikovsky also wrote a symphonic poem based on Hamlet and Ambroise Thomas an opera. Berlioz essayed an overture on King Lear and Smetana one on Richard III. A Midsummer Night's Dream gives us Mendelssohn's Incidental Music and Britten's opera. Berlioz weighs in yet again with Beatrice and Benedict based on Much Ado. Verdi was another prolific Shakespeare 'miner' with Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff. The fat knight seems to have inspired several composers with a Falstaff by Salieri and Sir John in Love by Vaughan Williams and not forgetting Nicholai's .Merry Wives' to which we hear but the overture nowadays.
On this count Romeo and Juliet comes in as the favourite Shakespeare play for composers to adapt. However, I may be wrong, and the list of examples of settings I've listed is, I'm sure, far from complete. What other composers have been inspired to use Shakespeare as a leaping off point or to set to music?
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