“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.”
William Shakespeare.
Billy was a fan of music, it seems. And the CCB seem to be fans of Billy, which is why their 2019 edition of “Days of Music in Belém” is dedicated to none other than the bard himself.
Here’s what they tell us:
“Based on the monologue ‘All the world is a stage,’ given by Jacques in As You Like It… this cycle presents the seven phases of human life, from childhood to its decline and death, in quartet music and with the declamation of sonnets and excerpts from Shakespeare plays, which served as inspiration to James Derriça for this interpretation by the Camões Quartet.
It is inspired by Joseph Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross.
The number 7 (seven)- totality, perfection, consciousness, intuition, spirituality, and will – symbolizes the cyclical conclusion and renewal, the end of one world and the beginning of another, charged with symbolism both for the Christian world and for many others mythologies. Seven are the days of the week, the degrees of perfection, the heavenly spheres, the petals of roses that evoke the seven heavens, the seven angelic hierarchies, and all perfect sets.”
Come sit on the banks of the Tejo river and let some sweet harmony creep into your ears.
9,50€.
Tickets here.
Oh, and here’s the full monologue in case you forgot it:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.
Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.
And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
And here’s a glimpse of the quartet in action.
