Hear from composer Matt Williams about writing the original music for ETG’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
From my first conversations with Pauline, the Director, I was itching to get started on the music for ETG’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Having watched a number of ballets over the summer, I was keen to bring certain aspects of that style into the score. The flighty forest atmosphere that the majority of the play is set in lends itself beautifully to this, as Mendelssohn proved with his reimagining of this play as a ballet. It was this, alongside the score to Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet of ‘The Winter’s Tale’, composed by Joby Talbot, that proved so inspirational when writing for this show.
I find that getting the opening right is the most crucial when scoring a play. It forms the first impressions of how the story may unfold and sets an audience’s expectations. Pauline and I wanted the opening of ‘Midsummers’ to create a bustling forest ambience with movement and moments of tension and uncertainty. I attempted to bring this to the score through a simple ostinato to begin, with short flurries in the winds and responses from the strings. This then collapses into a sweeping theme on strings, supported by mid-winds. A rippling textural accompaniment in the lower strings, harp, and bassoon attempts to emphasise that feeling of movement.
To prepare the first location of the play, the opening is juxtaposed with the ‘Athens theme’. This classical imitation gives a stark contrast and aims to establish Theseus and the Court as outsiders to the forest, where the majority of the play is set. In discussions, this portrayal of Athens was intended to be staunch and capitalist, with Theseus as the embodiment of the patriarchy. Think Ancient Greece meets Wolf of Wall Street.
The Chase was the most difficult portion of the show to score as it needed to be paired closely with onstage action and dialogue. As such, creating enough contrast to highlight certain moments and keep up with the ever-changing nature of the scene was a tricky task. Having three strong underlying themes to draw on allowed the music to feel cohesive and grounded. Funnily enough, I was struggling for inspiration with this piece till a friend introduced me to the soundtrack from the anime ‘Hunter X Hunter’, scored by Yoshihisa Hirano. I loved the rolling tension created in a section of strings accompaniment and adapted it into the Chase theme.
Finally, there is almost always one piece that inexplicably comes together more naturally than the rest. For me, this was the Dance between Titania and Oberon. On suggestion from Pauline, I built inspiration through listening to Nordic folk lullabies. I was most drawn to the Swedish/Finnish lullaby ‘Vem kan segla förutan vind’, and the Dance practically wrote itself.
Writing for ETG has been such a wonderful project to be a part of, with the incredible talent on display in both the cast and the crew. I hope to write more for future Cambridge shows very soon!
A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
Tuesday 21st - Saturday 25th January, 7.45PM
ADC Theatre
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