Plays with incidental music explained
This is an incomplete list of plays for which incidental music has been written.
A very large number of such works have been written, and to limit the size of this article, only items where the composer and/or the playwright has a specific Wikipedia article should be included.
A
- 1942 music by Darius Milhaud, Op. 231 (also 1932)
- The Annunciation (La anunciación; Tomás Borrás)
- music by Heinz Tiessen (died 1971)
- Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare, c. 1605)
- music by Camille Saint-Saëns, Op. 128; this was music for a film, not a staged play as such, and is generally considered one of the world's first film scores
- As You Like It (William Shakespeare, c. 1600)
- 1845 music by Felix Mendelssohn
B
- 1912 and 1917 music by Richard Strauss, to Hugo von Hofmannsthal's German versions of the play Der Bürger als Edelmann. The ending of the play was originally replaced by an opera Ariadne auf Naxos. After the failure of this version, Hofmannsthal reinstated the original ending and commissioned extra music from Strauss, including arrangements of Lully. Strauss published a suite containing most of the music from the two versions.
C
- 1925 music by Willem Pijper
- Cymbeline (William Shakespeare, c. 1611)
D
- 1941 music by Henri Sauguet (Le Mort de Danton; play adapted by Michel J. Arnaud)
- Dear Brutus (J. M. Barrie, 1917)
- 1913 music by Ralph Vaughan Williams
- Déjanire (Louis Gallet)
- music by Edward Elgar (published as Grania and Diarmid, Op. 42)
- 1. Introduction and Funeral March
- 1937 music by Darius Milhaud, Op. 160 (La duchesse d’Amalfi, a French adaptation by Fluchère)
- 1945 music by Benjamin Britten
E
- music by Paul Dessau; played at the Deutsche Akademie der Künste, [East] Berlin 1965 performance
- 1936 music by Sergei Prokofiev, Op. 71
- The Eumenides: Part III of Oresteia (see below)
F
1949 music by Henri Sauguet
G
H
- 1954 music by Dmitri Shostakovich (also 1932)
- 1968 music by Darius Milhaud, Op. 426
- The House of Aspen (Sir Walter Scott)
I
- 1664 music by John Banister the elder
- 1695 music by Henry Purcell, to an expanded version of the play
- The Inventor and the Comedians (Mark Daniel, 1938–39)
J
- 1916 music by Jean Sibelius, Op. 83
- Jérusalem à Carpentras (Lunel)
- 1939 music by Benjamin Britten
K
- 2010 music by Mike Hallenbeck; 2011-2013 music by Jon Silpayamanant
- Königskinder (The King's Children; Ernst Rosmer (Elsa Bernstein-Porges), 1895)
- 1897 music by Engelbert Humperdinck (he wrote an opera on the same subject in 1910)
- Kronbruden (The Crown Bride; August Strindberg, 1900)
- the music was revised in 1904, 1906 and 1911, and the original six numbers as presented in 1903 no longer exist
- Valse triste (originally Op. 44; since 1973 it has been numbered Op. 44, No. 1), one of Sibelius's most famous pieces, came from the 1904 revision
- Canzonetta, Op. 62a, was performed for the first time in 1911, but it had been written in 1906, in a different version, as Rondino der Liebenden, adapted from the original music
- Valse romantique, Op. 62b, was specially composed for the 1911 version of the play
- the remaining extant piece, Scene with Cranes, was a combining and revision of two numbers from the original score; it was written and performed in 1906, but it did not form part of the 1911 incidental music, and was published posthumously only in 1973, as Op. 44, No. 2.
L
- 1941 music by Henri Sauguet (Léonce et Léna; play adapted by Michel J. Arnaud)
- 1930 music by Leevi Madetoja, Op. 75
- The Little Minister (J. M. Barrie, 1897)
- 1940 music bt Sándor Veress
- Lucky Peter's Travels (aka The Journey of Fortunate Peter; August Strindberg)
M
- Macbeth (William Shakespeare, c. 1605)
- 1836 music by Julius Rietz
- Measure for Measure (William Shakespeare, c. 1604)
- 1950 music by İlhan Usmanbaş (for 2 flutes)
- The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare. c. 1597)
- 1880 music by Jules Massenet
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare, c. 1595)
- music by Felix Mendelssohn (overture 1826; remaining music 1843, including the Wedding March)
N
O
- 1845 music by Felix Mendelssohn
- music by Benjamin Britten
- Oresteia (Aeschylus, trilogy, 458 BC)
- 1915 music by Darius Milhaud (Les choëphores, Op. 24)
- Part III - The Eumenides
- 1923 music by Darius Milhaud, Op. 41
- Othello (William Shakespeare, c. 1603)
P
- 1940 music by Henri Sauguet
- Un petit ange de rien du tout (C. A. Puget)
- 1881 music by Edgar Tinel (an orchestral suite was produced in 1906)
- La Porte héroïque du ciel (Jules Bois, 1894)
- music by Lili Boulanger (died 1918; she also worked on an opera on the same subject, which was not finished)
- 1955 music by Darius Milhaud, Op. 341 (also 1919)
Q
R
- 1898 music by Josef Suk, Op. 13; rev. 1912; in 1900 he reworked the music as an orchestral piece, A Fairy Tale, Op. 16
- Ramuntcho (Pierre Loti, 1897)
- 1936 music by Darius Milhaud, Op. 161 (S. Jollivet, after Jouve, after Shakespeare)
- 1839 music by Felix Mendelssohn
S
- St. Jakob an der Birs (C.A. (August) Bernoulli)
- 1940 music by Henri Sauguet (play adapted by Claude Spaak as L'École de médisance)
- 1873 music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Op. 12
T
- music by Benjamin Britten
- Timon of Athens (William Shakespeare, before 1623)
- music by Stephen Sondheim
U
V
W
- 1926 music by Paul Müller, Op. 13
X
Y
Notes and References
- Book: Lucifer and Prometheus: A Study of Milton's Satan. 9780415209489. Zwi Werblowsky. R. J.. 1999.
- Web site: Op. 71 Scaramouche.
