Henry V: A Musical Scenario after Shakespeare

for speaker, mixed chorus, children's choir (optional), and orchestra

arranged by Christopher Palmer

General Information – Performing Forces – Manuscript – Publication –  Arrangements – Recordings – Text

General Information:

Arrangement:
Arranged by Christopher Palmer, from the music for the film Henry V, composed 1943–4. The manuscript full score of the arrangement is dated '1988' after the final bar.

First Performance:
Friday, 11 May 1990. Royal Festival Hall, London. Christopher Plummer speaker, Choristers of Westminster Cathedral (James O'Donnell, chorus director), Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chorus (Laszlo Heltay, chorus master), Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Sir Neville Marriner conductor.

Duration:
About 58 minutes

Text:
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), from Henry V.
Click here for complete text.

Movements:

Dedication:
to Christopher Plummer and Sir Neville Marriner

Craggs Catalogue Number:
C50c

Performing Forces:

Speaker

Boys' chorus (SA)  [optional]
        May be supplemented by girls if necessary.

Mixed chorus (SATB)

3 flutes (second and third doubling piccolos), 3 oboes (third doubling English horn), 3 clarinets in A (all doubling clarinets in B-flat; third doubling bass clarinet in B-flat), 2 bassoons – 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C, 3 trombones, tuba – timpani, 4 or 5 percussion (2 snare drums, 1 or 2 tenor drums, bass drum, tabor, large tambourine, cymbals, tam-tam, rattle, triangle, tubular bells, xylophone, glockenspiel, crotales, suspended cymbal, field drum) – 1 or 2 harps – harpsichord (doubling piano and celesta) – organ (optional) – strings

        Note: The above instrumentation is of the critical edition of the work. Palmer's original instrumentation also included alto flute, fourth trumpet, and vibraphone.

Manuscript:

Oxford University Press Hire Library. Manuscript full score. Partly in Christopher Palmer's hand, and including photocopied pages of the Henry V concert suites by Muir Mathieson and Sir Malcolm Sargent. After the final bar, Palmer wrote: 'WW 1944 / CP 1988'.

Publication:

Oxford University Press. Edited by David Lloyd-Jones. William Walton Edition, Volume 23, 1999, 019 3385317. Score, vocal score, and parts are available on hire.
            [Purchase online from SheetMusicPlus.com: William Walton Edition, Volume 23]

Arrangements:

Arranged for chamber ensemble, by Edward Watson.
First Performance: Sunday, 25 April 1993. Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Richard Baker speaker, English Serenata, Guy Woolfenden conductor.
Performing Forces: Speaker – 2 choruses (SA, optional) – flute (doubling piccolo), oboe (doubling English horn), 2 clarinets (first doubling bass clarinet), bassoon – horn, trumpet – percussion – piano (doubling harpsichord) – two cellos
Publication: Oxford University Press. Score and parts are available on hire.

Suite for Brass Band, arranged by Edward Watson.
Instrumentation: Speaker – soprano cornet, solo cornet, 3 cornets (1 ripieno) – flugelhorn, 3 horns, 2 baritones, 2 trombones, bass trombone, euphonium, E-flat bass, B-flat bass – timpani, 3 percussion
Publication: Oxford University Press. Score and parts are available on hire.

Recordings:

Text:

This text applies only to Christopher Palmer's complete scenario. The two Watson arrangements include a somewhat shortened version of this text.

Note: The choirs are wordless until the final movement.

1. Prologue

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention:
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
The flat unraised spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cock-pit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt? ...
On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them,
Printing their proud hoofs i'th' receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning th'accomplishment of many years
Into an hourglass—for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history,
Who Prologue-like your humble patience pray
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

2. Interlude: At the Boar's Head

Falstaff is dead!
The king has killed his heart

    [in the voice of Falstaff:]
God save thy grace, King Hal, my royal Hal!
God save thee, my sweet boy!
My king, my Jove,
I speak to thee, my heart!

    [in the voice of the King:]
I know thee not, old man.
Fall to thy prayers.
How ill while hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane;
But being awake, I do despise my dream.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.
Presume not that I am the thing I was,
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turned away my former self,
So will I those that kept me company.

3. Embarkation

Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;
Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man.
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
Following the mirror of all Christian kings
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits expectation in the air
And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,
Promised to Harry and his followers. ...
The King is set from London, and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit,
And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
To give you gentle pass—for if we may
We'll not offend one stomach with our play.

Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning.
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with th'invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge vessels through the furrowed sea,
Breasting the lofty surge.

O do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on th'inconstant billows dancing—
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow! ...
Cheerly to sea, the signs of war advance:
No king of England, if not king of France.

4. Interlude: 'Touch her soft lips and part'  [text is optional]

Farewell, farewell, divine Zenocrate—
Is it not passing brave to be a king
And ride in triumph through Persepolis!
Touch her soft lips and part.

5. (i) Harfleur

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead,
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility,
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage.
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,
Fathers that like so many Alexanders
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That hose whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding—which I doubt not,
For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry, 'God for Harry! England and Saint George!'

The nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches
And down goes all before them!

5. (ii) The Night-watch

Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch.
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umbered face.
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and overlusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice,
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning's danger; and their gesture sad,
Investing lank-leen cheeks and war-worn coats,
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruined band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry, 'Praise and glory on his head!'
For forth he goes and visits all his host,
Bids them good-morrow with a modest smile,
And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night,
But freshly looks and overbears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty,
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.
A largess universal, like the sun,
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.

Upon the King! 'Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our care-full wives,
Our children, and our sings, lay on the King.'
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing. What infinite heart's ease
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
And what have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? ...
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.
Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial ...
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world;
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
Who, with a body fill'd and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread;
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But like a lackey from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour to his grave.
And but for ceremony such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the forehand and vantage of a king.
O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts,
Possess them not with fear. Take then from now
The sense of reckoning, ere th' opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.

6. Agincourt

This day is called the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live t'old age
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors
And say, 'Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say, 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Awake remembrance of our valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats.
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne,
The blood and courage that renowned them
Runs in your veins—and your thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
The sun is high. Now soldiers, march away,
And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day.

The day is ours! Praised be God, and not our strength, for it.
For when, without stratagem,
But in plain shock and even play of battle,
Was ever known so great and little loss
On one part and on th' other? Take it God,
For it is none but thine.
A castle stands hard by; they call it Agincourt.
Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.
Do we now all holy rites:
Let there be sung Non nobis and Te deum;
The dead with charity enclosed in clay;
And then to Calais, and to England then,
Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men.

7. Interlude: At the French Court

My duty to you both, on equal love,
Great Kings of France and England.
Since, ten, my office hath so far prevailed
That face to face and royal eye to eye
You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me
If I demand, before this royal view,
What rub or what impediment there is
Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births.
Should not in this best garden of the world,
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in its own fertility.
Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleached
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair
Put forth disordered twigs; ...
The even mead—that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover—
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.
And all our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wilderness,
Even so our houses and ourselves and children
Have lost, or do not learn for want of time.
The sciences that should become our country,
But grow like savages—as soldiers will
That nothing do but meditate on blood—
To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire,
And everything that seems unnatural.
Which to reduce into our formal favour
You are assembled, and my speech entreats
That I may know the let why gentle peace
Should not expel these inconveniences
And bless us with her former qualities.

8. Epilogue

    [speaker]
The King of France hath granted every article:
His daughter first, and then in sequel all,
According to their firm proposed natures,
... that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other's happiness,
May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord
In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.

Thus far with rough and all-unable pen
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England. Fortune made his sword,
By which the world's best garden he achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord. ...
Which oft our stage hath shown—and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

    [choirs]
          Deo gratias Anglia
          Redde pro victoria
Our King went forth to Normandy
With grace and might of chivalry;
There God for him wrought marv'lously,
Wherefore England may call and cry:
          Deo gratias Anglia
          Redde pro victoria
Almighty God, O keep our King,
His people and all those well willing,
And give them grace without ending,
Then may we call and safely sing,
          Deo gratias Anglia
          Redde pro victoria

WilliamWalton.net – Catalogue of Works – Choral Music – Henry V