Choral Guild 2008

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Shakespearean soliloquies

I wonder how many of you visited the www.musictheory.net website over the past week? Be honest, now... I know we're busy, but I was thinking during last night's rehearsal how much those exercises would benefit anyone who took even just 5 or 10 minutes to help train their eyes and ears. As we sing some quite complex parts in our repertoire for this concert, I can't stress enough how helpful it would be. In any case, we will again rehearse as many of our current pieces as possible on Monday, so come early and be ready for another solid rehearsal.
Coincidentally, I have, over the past week, heard two separate references to words from the great Shakespeare. So, I got to thinking, I bet that many of you have a favorite passage or two from the bard's great masterworks that have resonated with you throughout the years. I will never forget being forever changed by seeing in high school a dramatic interpretation of the "Out, damn spot!" scene in Macbeth where Lady Macbeth is driven to publicly reveal her horrid, secret crime because of her immense guilt. I think, though, that my favorite is still the classic sonnet:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Ah, iambic pentameter is quite romantic, no? So, what are your favorite Shakespearean lines? Let me know by blogging about it here or sending me your thoughts. Those lines may have a place in our concert on October 21.

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