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Music in the plays of William Shakespeare includes both music incidental to the plot, as song and dance, and also additional supplied both by Shakespeare's own company and subsequent performers. This music is distinct from musical settings of Shakespeare's sonnets by later composers.

Music in Shakespeare's own theatre productions

Songs as text within the plays

The following are among the most notable examples of songs in Shakespeare's plays:

• "Full Fathom Five" in The Tempest, I, 2
• "How Should I Your True Love Know?" in Hamlet IV, 5
• "It Was a Lover and His Lass" in As You Like It V, 3
• "O Mistress Mine" in Twelfth Night, II, 3
• "Sigh No More" in Much Ado About Nothing, II, 3
• "Take, O Take Those Lips Away" in Measure for Measure, IV, 1
• "Then They for Sudden Joy Did Weep" in King Lear, I, 4
• "The Wind and the Rain" in Twelfth Night, V, 1
• "Under the Greenwood Tree" in As You Like It, II, 5
• "When Griping Griefs" in Romeo and Juliet, IV, 5
• "Where the Bee Sucks" in The Tempest, V, 1
• "Willow song" in Othello, IV, 3

Other songs mentioned within the plays

• "Caleno custure me" not sung but mentioned in Henry V, IV, 4
• “Greensleeves" in The Merry Wives of Windsor, V, 5.
• "Heart's Ease" in Romeo and Juliet, IV, 5.102

Dance

Among the dances associated with Shakespeare's company is "Kemp's Jig" named after the actor Will Kemp.

Music for later theatre productions

The generations after Shakespeare saw many composers create or arrange incidental music and song settings for his plays. Among the most notable were Thomas Morley, Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke, Thomas Arne, William Linley, Sir Henry Bishop, and Sir Arthur Sullivan. Felix Mendelssohn’s overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826) was a descriptive piece intended for concert performance, though he later added incidental music for a production of the play in 1843.

The Shakespearian music of the 19th century was more often associated with the opera house or concert hall than with productions of the plays. In the early 20th century Elizabethan music began to be used as incidental music in a bid for more authenticity. Gradually some new scores were introduced. Vaughan Williams was engaged to write incidental music at Stratford between 1912 and 1913. Rosabel Watson directed and arranged music for many productions at Stratford and elsewhere.

A Shakespeare Music Catalogue (1991) lists over 20,000 items of theatrical and non-theatrical music associated with Shakespeare, much of it unpublished.

Recordings

Attempts at reconstructing and performing the "original" songs from the plays and related folk songs have been recorded by various musicians, from Shakespeare Songs by Alfred Deller (1967), to the recordings of Philip Pickett.

References

1. David Lindley, Shakespeare and Music (2014) 1408143666 "Focusing throughout on the plays as theatrical performances, this work analyzes the ways Shakespeare explores and exploits the conflicting perceptions of music at the time and its dramatic and thematic potential."
2. Christopher Wilson. Shakespeare and Music (1922)
3. 'Shakespeare, William', in Grove Music Online (2001)
4. B.N.S. Gooch and D. Thatcher, eds.: A Shakespeare Music Catalogue (Oxford, 1991)

v t e William Shakespeare
Plays	Comedies All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre ✻ The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen ✻ The Winter's Tale Tragedies Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Hamlet Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Histories King John Edward III ✻ Richard II Henry IV 1 2 Henry V Henry VI 1 ✻ 2 3 Richard III Henry VIII ✻ Early editions Quarto publications First Folio Second Folio Related Problem plays Late romances Henriad Characters A–K L–Z Ghost character Chronology Performances Settings Scenes
Poems	Shakespeare's sonnets comparison to Petrarch A Lover's Complaint The Phoenix and the Turtle The Rape of Lucrece Venus and Adonis
Apocrypha	Plays Arden of Faversham The Birth of Merlin Cardenio ✻† Double Falsehood Edmund Ironside Fair Em Locrine The London Prodigal Love's Labour's Won † The Merry Devil of Edmonton Mucedorus The Puritan The Second Maiden's Tragedy Sejanus His Fall Sir John Oldcastle Sir Thomas More ✻ The Spanish Tragedy Thomas Lord Cromwell Thomas of Woodstock Ur-Hamlet † Vortigern and Rowena A Yorkshire Tragedy Poems The Passionate Pilgrim To the Queen
Life and works	Birthplace Bibliography Complete Works Translations Coat of arms Collaborations Editors English Renaissance theatre Globe Theatre Handwriting Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men The Theatre Curtain Theatre Music New Place Portraits Religious views Sexuality Spelling of his name Stratford-upon-Avon Style Will Grave
Legacy	Attribution studies Authorship question Bardolatry Festivals Gardens Influence Memorials Screen adaptations Shakespeare and Star Trek Shakespeare's influence on Tolkien Works titled after Shakespeare Institutions Folger Shakespeare Library Shakespeare Quarterly Royal Shakespeare Company Royal Shakespeare Theatre Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Shakespeare's Globe (replica) Shakespeare Institute
Family	Anne Hathaway (wife) Susanna Hall (daughter) Hamnet Shakespeare (son) Judith Quiney (daughter) Elizabeth Barnard (granddaughter) John Shakespeare (father) Mary Arden (mother) Gilbert Shakespeare (brother) Joan Shakespeare (sister) Edmund Shakespeare (brother) Richard Shakespeare (grandfather) John Hall (son-in-law) Thomas Quiney (son-in-law)
✻ Shakespeare and other authors † Lost Category

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