As National Poetry Month continues, 91Classical has teamed up with actors from Nashville Shakespeare Festival to celebrate the birth of William Shakespeare, which happened this week in 1564.

While a bevy of composers have set Shakespeare’s words to music, just have many have written instrumental works inspired by his plays — be it incidental music, concert overtures, or film scores. Listen to some of that music below, paired with performances by local actors of the words that inspired it.

Romeo and Juliet

What if Romeo and Juliet lived during the COVID-19 pandemic? Actors Mason Conrad and Morgan Davis give us a very 2020 version of Act 3, Scene 5 of Shakespeare’s tragic romance, with the star-crossed lovers meeting over a Zoom call. The technology may be different, but the emotion — of newfound romance and the agony of not being able to be with the person you love — is just the same.

In his 1938 ballet score, Sergei Prokofiev masterfully captures through music the central tension of Romeo and Juliet: the contrast between young, tender, love and a longstanding, violent family feud. Throughout the score, Prokofiev rockets back and forth between a forceful, foreboding themes (as in In Dance of the Knights) and music that is serene and romantic, as heard in the movement below, Romeo Bids Farewell to Juliet. But Prokofiev wasn’t entirely faithful to Shakespeare’s storyline, and the composer originally intended for the young lovers to survive at the end of the ballet — giving the most famous tragic love story a cheery conclusion — before Stalin banned it and insisted on the preservation of tradition.

King Lear

While Nashville Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Denice Hicks knows all of The Bard’s plays, she is particularly familiar with King Lear, and with good reason. Her experience stepping into the title role at the last minute after an actor suddenly fell ill was documented on an episode of the podcast Neighbors. Here, she performs a speech of King Lear’s from Act 5 scene 3, where Lear and his youngest daughter, Cordelia, have been captured by the soldiers of his older daughters. Cordelia offers to meet with her sisters to see if she can negotiate a release, but Lear insists that they agree to go to prison instead.

Philip Glass wrote incidental music for a 2019 Broadway production of King Lear that also featured a woman — actor Glenda Jackson — in the lead role. Glass has frequently written for the theatre, and has previously provided music for Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Henry IV, Parts One and Two.

Hamlet

One of the more notable conventions Shakespeare uses in Hamlet is the play-within-a-play, organized by the title character to prove the guilt of his murderous uncle. As actor Sam Ashdown explains: “This monologue takes place after the Player King has just delivered an impressively emotional performance, describing the fictional character of Hecuba. Once he’s alone, Hamlet turns to the audience and questions why an actor is able to feel so strongly about something imaginary while he himself is unable to take action about something real.”

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that Niels Wilhelm Gade, one of the most important Danish composers of his era, was drawn to Shakespeare’s dark drama set in Denmark. Gade approaches the story with a tone poem, a genre that captured the imaginations of 19th century composers by allowing them to depict stories and images with instrumental music. Gade bookends his tone poem with a funereal march, perhaps reminiscent of the ghost that opens Hamlet, and the death of so many characters that end it. In between, Gade illustrates the play’s drama with an agitated theme, and in a moment reprieve, a romantic theme possibly meant for Hamlet and Ophelia.

The Tempest

Husband and wife duo Robert and Jayme Marigza-Yeo bring to life an exchange between characters Ferdinand and Miranda that is particularly meaningful for them — they performed it at their wedding. Robert sets the scene for a meet-cute turned betrothal:

Italian-born composer Giovanni Battista Draghi came to London in the 1660s at the behest of King Charles II, who was hoping to establish Italian opera in England. With romance, magic, and familial betrayal, The Tempest was fitting for an operatic adaptation at Charles’s court, and Draghi was tasked with writing the instrumental portions of the music. His windswept introduction mirrors the ship in a storm at the opening of the play, while the title, Dance of the Fantastick Spirits, alludes to Ariel, the air spirit who serves Prospero.

Macbeth

Shakespeare’s dark psychological drama, first staged in 1606, warns of the repercussions of greed and ambition. Actor Mariah Parris sets the scene for a monologue that happens in the aftermath of a witchy encounter: “Lady Macbeth has just received a letter from Macbeth detailing his first encounter with the Weyward Sisters who prophesized that he is to become King of Scotland. Lady Macbeth calls upon dark spirits to give her man-like strength so that she and her husband may fulfill the prophecy and obtain the throne.”

Singer-songwriter turned film composer Jed Kurzel provided the cinematic soundscape for his brother Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film adaptation of Macbeth, with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard in the lead roles. Kurzel’s atmospheric strings create timbres that are both emotionally stirring and unnerving, like the madness that befalls the play’s characters.

Much Ado About Nothing

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust gives perhaps the best succinct synopsis of Much Ado About Nothing: “Benedick and Beatrice don’t love each other but then they do. Claudio and Hero love each other but then they don’t but then they do again. Everyone gets married.”

Carrie Brewer describes this moment with Beatrice: “In this scene Beatrice’s uncle says she’s too saucy to get a husband. Beatrice explains why being single is just fine with her.”

The overture to Erich Korngold’s Suite from Much Ado About Nothing begins playfully, mimicking the witty banter exchanged between Beatrice and Benedick at the start of their relationship. Korngold’s music then transitions into a sweeping, romantic melody in the strings, suggesting that the characters will soon follow suit and realize their love for one another.

Henry V

While Henry V opens in crisis — with the title character having just assumed the throne in the aftermath of civil wars and his own disreputable past — actor Nat McIntyre says the prologue is the “perfect monologue for theatre.” In it, an actor is tasked with setting the stage for a story that is huge in scope and spectacle. “As the monologue moves forward,” McIntyre explains “the actor realizes that the magic comes from the imagination and will of the people watching. If we commit to telling the story and you commit to hearing it, magic will ensue.”

In a play filled with battles and betrayal, Sir William Walton’s string miniature provides an intimate moment between two parting lovers: Pistol, as he heads to war, and Mistress Quickly. The delicate moment was originally written for the 1944 film adaptation of Henry V starring Laurence Olivier, which was meant to boost British morale during WWII.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare once again makes use of a play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A group of amateur actors (known as “the mechanicals”) perform — very badly, to comedic effect — the tragic story of ill-fated lovers Pyramus and Thisbe as entertainment for the newlyweds. Geoff Davin performs a monologue as the groom Theseus before the play-within-a-play commences.

Felix Mendelssohn was just 17 when he composed his concert overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, expertly capturing the mystical world of Shakespeare’s creation. 16 years later Mendelssohn returned to his overture and incorporated it into incidental music he wrote to accompany an actual performance of the play.

See more performances from The Nashville Shakespeare Festival this Thursday, as they continue their annual tradition of The Bard’s Birthday Bash — updated this year to an online live-stream of favorite Shakespeare scenes. In the meantime,  look back at 91Classical’s month-long celebration of music and poetry.