Shakespeare and music — Story, Setting & Ideas

Dance Forms as Structural Clues

The chapter on dances traces how Elizabethan choreography shaped dramatic scenes. Naylor quotes Morley's Practical Music (1597) to show that pavans were 'grave' dances in three strains, each repeated, and were customarily followed by a galliard in triple time. This pairing appears in Twelfth Night (V, i, 200) and Henry V (I, ii, 252). The book also connects the 'Brawl' (bransle) in Love's Labour's Lost (III, i, 9) to Morley's description of the Alman, danced in a ring or 'at length.' Naylor argues that these dance sequences represent the earliest move toward instrumental sonata form, since pavans and galliards were originally sung before becoming purely instrumental.

Sung Dances and the Masque Tradition

A striking passage from Morley describes Italian galliards 'which in their mascaradoes they sing and dance, and manie times without any instruments at all.' Naylor links this directly to the stage direction in Timon of Athens (I, ii, 131), where Amazons enter 'with lutes in their hands, dancing and playing.' The book also notes Bottom's request to 'hear a Bergomask dance' in A Midsummer Night's Dream (V, ii, 30), explaining that a Bergomask was a sung dance in the Bergamasca language. These examples show how Shakespeare embedded actual performance practices into his plays, blending vocal and instrumental music onstage.

A Surviving Song: 'Death, rock me to sleep'

Naylor reproduces a refrain from a song possibly from Henry VIII's time: 'Tole on thou passing bell / Ringe out my dolefull knell / Let thy sound my death tell, / For I must die, / There is no remedye.' The accompaniment features a 'continual figure of three descending notes, like the bells of a village church.' The book notes that Hawkins attributed the poem to Anne Boleyn and provided a four-part setting by Robert Johnson, a Shakespeare contemporary. Naylor suggests this may be the very song alluded to in the plays, though he acknowledges the music in Chappell's collection is older than Johnson's version.

Technical Terms and Instrumental Evidence

The opening chapters catalog instruments and terms that appear in Shakespeare's text, from the virginal (Queen Elizabeth's own instrument, depicted in the frontispiece) to the viol da gamba and cornet. Naylor corrects period misspellings like 'Passemezzo' and 'viol de gamba,' and explains that 'Passamezzo' pavans were sometimes sung, as Morley distinguishes 'Passamesos with a dittie' from those 'without ditties.' The book also clarifies time signatures and rests, modernizing old-style symbols in the music images. This technical grounding allows readers to see how Shakespeare's musical references were not decorative but precise.

Readers interested in the intersection of musicology and Shakespearean drama will find Naylor's method instructive: he treats each allusion as a documentary clue rather than a poetic flourish. The book is best used alongside the plays themselves, with a copy of Morley or Arbeau at hand. Those seeking a broader cultural history may need to supplement this focused study with more recent scholarship, but Naylor's evidence remains a valuable starting point.

Reading about the dances in Shakespeare and music brought back an evening in my grandmother’s parlor, her old harpsichord slightly out of tune. I thought of how a melody can anchor a scene’s mood. Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas — Themes and Context gave me that same quiet ache, remembering how a single leitmotif can hold an entire story’s sorrow.