You Spotted Snakes from A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of the compositions intended for my proposed book of songs from Shakespeare's plays for use in performances, which I'm creating in hopes there will be a demand for them, since Shakespeare remains popular. If anyone reading this knows of any theatrical company, at any level from school drama classes to professional companies or anything in between, who may be interested in such songs, please let me know.
This setting is a cappella and deliberately kept simple, since it is supposed to be a lullaby. The melody is adapted from the traditional Welsh lullaby Suo Gan*. The melody fits the words so well that I am tempted to wonder if Shakepeare had it in mind when he wrote the lyrics -- complete speculation, of course, but the melody is undoubtedly very old, and Shakespeare did have a Welsh grandmother. Could she have sung it to Shakespeare?
Score display with software-generated audio file as a demo available at MuseScore You Spotted Snakes.
The lyrics are in the score.
Comments welcome.
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* There's supposed to be a little hat thing over the a in Gan, but this text input box ain't got no diacritics.
Replies
Hi Jon, a satisfying straightforward tune, with a nice "soaring" quality -
Gav
Thanks, glad you liked it.