PSO Concert Explores Shakespeare in Music

On Sunday, March 18, Princeton Symphony Orchestra will present a concert of three works inspired by Shakespeare’s plays as well as a contemporary flute concerto.

Shakespeare’s works have been a source of inspiration for generations, with adaptations and settings of his plays and poems for nearly every art form, including music. In some instances, the resulting work is so evocative of the original Shakespeare text that it becomes almost inseparable from it in our minds.

The PSO begins at 4 p.m. at Princeton University's Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall. 

Performances will include Felix Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Hamlet, Sergei Prokofiev's Selections from Romeo and Juliet and Lowell Liebermann's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra.

The opening of Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream features soft, high-register chords and evanescent, rapid scales evocative of the court of Oberon and Tatiana. Later, the comic characters of Puck and of Nick Bottom are unmistakably present in the music. 

Tchaikovsky’s overture Hamlet evokes the brooding quality of the play’s main character, the urgency of his hopes of revenge and the recurring theme of fate.

Prokofiev’s ballet score highlights the tension between the two feuding families, the tender advances of the young lovers, the furtiveness of their prohibited interactions and the intensity of their passion.

Flutist and CBS arts news correspondent Eugenia Zukerman will deliver readings from Shakespeare’s plays to introduce the musical translations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. She will also perform Liebermann’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra. 

As a prelude to Sunday's concert, composer Lowell Liebermann and flutist Eugenia Zukerman will discuss Liebermann’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Princeton Public Library.

For tickets, call the PSO at (609) 497-0020, download an order form at www.princetonsymphony.org or visit www.princeton.edu/utickets. Tickets may also be purchased at the Richardson Auditorium box office. Prices are $25-$68; student tickets are $25 with valid ID.