Today we celebrate the birthday of the the Bard and pay tribute to him and his prodigious literary canon. His remarkable, omniscient works have provided the creative wellspring for musical compositions throughout time. Here is a selected list of musical realizations of his plays:
Gounod, Charles. Romeo et Juliette
Mendelssohn, Felix. A Midsummer Night's Dream
Prokofiev, Sergey. Romeo and Juliet
Verdi, Giuseppe. Macbeth
Walton, William. Henry V Suite
"Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,
With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall"
As You Like It (V, iv, 174)