Few plays have as much foregrounded music as The Tempest, where the characters draw attention to the music that is being heard. Very often, the on-stage characters don’t appear to be able to hear the music that accompanies them. Like film scores, it provides an unseen, “unheard” soundtrack to the drama unfolding on stage. But in Tempest, the music shapes the character’s actions and thoughts. They interact with it, and it gives the island itself its own sonic character. This is the first time we hear the ‘solemn and strange’ sounds of the island without Ariel as an intermediary. And they aren’t particularly comforting or welcoming sounds. This is much more dissonant music than Woolfenden has given us previously. It’s built around a single, falling semitone motif that moves from B-flat to A, harmonised in various different ways, giving it a repetitive and slightly uncomfortable feel. Woolfenden has underlined the word ‘strange’ in the score, indicating that this was what he felt was most important to convey here.
The music continues right through this passage, underscoring the whole conversation. It stops only when the thunder interrupts after Alonso says ‘Stand to and do as we.’ Woolfenden gives strict instructions to stop when the thunder starts, no matter where the musicians are in the music. Theatre composers always have to be flexible because of the variations between live performances. Unlike film where everything can be cropped and edited to fit precisely, theatre performances change slightly night on night. Sometimes actors might speak their lines slightly faster or slower than usual, take an unexpected amount of time to cross the stage, or any number of technical issues might mean that the crew have to make alterations to the usual set-up. So theatre composers have to be prepared to write music that can either be continued indefinitely or cut short without significant alteration, allowing the musicians flexibility to adapt to the changing circumstances on the night. This is one of those instances. Woolfenden’s directions state that usually the thunder will interrupt somewhere around rehearsal mark D in the music, but that more important than finishing the musical phrase is stopping when the thunder begins.
The shapes were clad in black plastic robes with flared sleeves, the dogs in black and grey suede, and the reapers wore green suede tops and trousers, with strips of yellow and green fabric sewn to hang from the trousers.
