Tempest full text, Hyperlink 28

The Masque is the most extensive music in the whole play. The music runs throughout the whole scene, eventually breaking into the hymn ‘Honour, riches, marriage-blessing’. Woolfenden’s setting is slow and stately, only using instruments that have already been associated with the island. The masque received some positive attention from local critics — Don Chapman writing for the Oxford Mail said that ‘for once the staging of the masque is pure magic and fully justifies the verbal magic of the speech of Prospero which follows’, while Norah Jones for the Birmingham Evening Mail called it ‘rather spectacular’. The national papers were less complimentary. John Barber’s verdict for the Daily Telegraph was much more lacklustre, saying that ‘the masque did seem to be frugally staged, and the magic generally looked parsimonious.’

All of the spirits were clothed in large swathes of fabric to give the impression of etherealness. Ceres (Carmen du Sautoy, pictured above) wore a robe of yellow and brown fabric, Juno’s (Darlene Johnson) was pale blue, and Iris’s (Catherine Riding) was pale green.

Link to mp3: ’04 Honour, riches, marriage, blessing’