Macbeth is a musical drama that initially evolved from working with Janequin’s epic piece La Guerre and some of 15th century composer Josquin Desprez’ profane and sacral songs. The scenic images that hence spring forth suggest a grim story: a story recognized and already written—William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606). So the story is told once again, using fragments of Shakespeare’s original text and the suggestive music of Janequin and Desprez. So the story is told once again, using fragments of Shakespeare’s original text and the suggestive music of Janequin and Desprez.
The Tragedy of Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603-1607. The source for the tragedy is Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) though the Macbeth told there bears no relations to Shakespeare’s character since Holinshed’s account for him was as an admired and able monarch. In the backstage world of the theatre, the play is cursed and is often referred to as “the Scottish play”.
When first performed by Romeo & Julia Kören the production was called “1515 — The Battle of M” referring to the central musical piece in the production, La Guerre. This was not because the tragedy is supposedly cursed, but had more to do with the major re-arrangement and re-interpretation of the original text. The world famous director Ingmar Bergman visited one rehearsal and his reaction was: You’re doing Macbeth, call it Macbeth. From thence it’s called Macbeth. Even though the text is greatly reduced compared to the original, some lines and the idea of the play within the play from Hamlet is included and the amount of murders merely is a fraction of the original most of the central plot is present.
Composer:
Clément Janequin was together with Claudin de Sermisy hugely influential in the development of the programmatic Parisian chanson. Janequin was born in Vienna and had a highly unusual career for his time since he never have any regular position with a cathedral or court. After a succession of posts he finally was listed as a ”singer ordinary” of the king’s chapel, and shortly thereafter became “composer ordinary” to the king (a title only honoured one other composer earlier). Not many renaissance composers have been more popular during their lifetimes than Janequin. His chansons were well-loved and widely sung. One of the most popular programmatic chansons is the partly onomatopoetic description of “The Battle of Marignan 1515” - “La Guerre” - the central musical piece of this Macbeth-production.
Josquin des Prez was a Franco-Flemish composer also known as Josquin Desprez, Josquinus Pratensis or Jodocus Pratensis although he himself preferred the spelling Josquin des Prez. He is usually considered to be the central figure of the Franco-Flemish School of composers and the first master of the high renaissance style of polyphonic vocal music. He was so popular and respected that many anonymous compositions were attributed to him by copyists, probably to increase their sales.
