A number of years ago I was commissioned to write background music to a production of King Lear, and this work, The King Lear Fantasy, is a compilation of that music put together in quintet form. It’s very programmatic and descriptive. For instance, it opens with the sound of the horn in the distance echoing through the fog of the English countryside. The Fool’s Song, Mv. 2, is based on a traditional ballad that was used in Twelfth Night as well as King Lear that the director of the play sang to me. The music reflects the quirky nature of the Fool with sudden accents and unexpected dissonances. He that has and a little tiny wit With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain, Must make content with fortunes fit, Though the rain it raineth every day. In Twelfth Night the words were similar: When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. The third movement is named for the cruel sisters, Goneril and Regan, who throw King Lear out into the storm where he recites his “Blow winds blow and crack your cheeks” soliloquy represented by the horn cadenza, surrounded by flourishes in the upper instruments depicting the wind. And finally, Cordelia’s Death is a dirge begun by the flute with the clarinet imitating a lute, soon joined by the other instruments. King Lear has gone mad by now and memories of the past seem to cross his mind in the form of leitmotifs from the previous movements. Originally King Lear Fantasy had alto trombone instead of French horn because I enlisted the help of my husband, trombonist Richard Raum, for the Globe production, but for practical purposes, I also wrote a version with horn.
