Music_based_on_the_works_of_Oscar_Wilde

Music based on the works of Oscar Wilde

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This is an incomplete list of music based on the works of Oscar Wilde.

Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet, novelist, short story writer and wit, whose works have been the basis of a considerable number of musical works by noted composers. In classical genres, these include operas, ballets, incidental music, symphonic poems, orchestral suites and single pieces, cantatas, and songs and song cycles. Of more recent times, some have been the subject of musicals and film scores. Some are direct settings of Wilde's words or libretti based on them, and some are wordless settings inspired by his writings.

List of works

The works of Oscar Wilde that have been set to music include:

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"Backstage with Andrew Goodwin", Limelight, February 2013, p. 24

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Mad, Scarlet Music

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Opera Composers: Z

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Text of The Canterville Ghost

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Text of Lord Alfred Douglas's poem The Garden of Death

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Toronyi-Lalic, Igor (27 April 2012). "The Importance of Being Earnest, Barbican Hall". The Arts Desk. Retrieved 26 May 2012.

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Saltatio Mortis – Sturm auf Paradies

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"Selfish Giant". Archived from the original on 8 February 2011. Retrieved 8 February 2011.

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Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Grant Foster	The Ballad of Reading Gaol	tenor and piano	2012	premiered in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by Andrew Goodwin and Mira Yevtich^[1]
Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer	Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves	song	1989
Jacques Ibert	La Ballade de la geôle de Reading	ballet	1920	published in a version by Ibert for piano duet in 1924
King Charles	Wilde Love	song	2012	Off the Loveblood CD, the song contains several verses from the poem in the chorus
Donald Swann	The Poetic Image: A Victorian Song Cycle	song cycle	1991	Swann set certain parts of the Ballad, along with The Harlot's House and other texts by Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, and John Clare
Arthur Wills	The Sacrifice of God	choral	1986	4-part choir and organ; words from Psalm 51 and The Ballad of Reading Gaol; composed on the death of the composer's young niece^[2]
Henri Zagwijn		declamation with music		in Dutch

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
John Alden Carpenter	The Birthday of the Infanta	ballet	1919
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco	The Birthday of the Infanta, Op. 115	ballet	1942	premiered New Orleans, 1947; an orchestral suite was produced in 1944
Wolfgang Fortner	Die weisse Rose (The White Rose)	ballet	1949–50	^[4]
Elisabeth Lutyens	The Birthday of the Infanta	ballet	1932
Miklós Radnai	Az infánsznö születésnapja (The Birthday of the Infanta)	ballet	1918	premiered Budapest Opera House, 26 April 1918
Franz Schreker	Der Geburtstag der Infantin	ballet-pantomime	1908	rev. as Spanisches Fest, 1923
Franz Schreker	Spanisches Fest (Spanish Festival)	ballet-pantomime	1923	revised version of Der Geburtstag der Infantin, 1908
Bernhard Sekles	Der Zwerg und die Infantin (The Dwarf and the Infanta), Op. 22	ballet	1913
Alexander von Zemlinsky	Der Zwerg (The Dwarf), Op. 17	opera	1919–21	libretto by George C. Klaren based on Wilde (although he took many liberties); premiered Neues Theater, Cologne, 28 May 1922, conducted by Otto Klemperer; in 1981 a new production by director Adolf Dresen was staged in Hamburg – this did away with Klaren's textual changes and was presented as Der Geburtstag der Infantin
Otakar Zítek	O růzi (On the Rose)	ballet	1941–42	Zítek 1894–1955^[5]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
George Bassman	The Canterville Ghost	film score	1944	^[2]
Alexander Knaifel	The Canterville Ghost	opera	1966
Jaroslav Křička	Bily pan (The Gentleman in White), Op. 30	opera	1927–29	2 acts, with libretto by Jan Löwenbach-Budin; a 3-act version Spuk im Schloss was produced in 1931
Jaroslav Křička	Spuk im Schloss, oder Böse Zeiten fur Gespenster	opera	1931	3 acts; a revised version of his 2-act 1929 opera Bily pan
Heinrich Sutermeister	Das Gespenst von Canterville	television opera	1964	telecast by ZDF, Mainz
Sergei Vasilenko	The Garden of Death ("after Oscar Wilde"), Op. 13	symphonic poem	1907–08	Vasilenko's title is sometimes said to have come from one of Wilde's poems, but he wrote no such poem. It comes from a passage in Chapter V of The Canterville Ghost where the character Virginia is speaking with the eponymous ghost and asks it where it sleeps. It talks about a certain garden. She whispers: You mean the Garden of Death, and it answers, Yes, Death.^[6] Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, whom he did not meet until 1891, later used The Garden of Death as the title of one of his own sonnets,^[7] published in 1899 in the collection "The City of the Soul".^[8]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Frederic Rzewski	De Profundis	speaking pianist	1992	The pianist speaks and sings excerpts from Wilde's letter^[9]
Larry Sitsky	De Profundis. Epistola: in Carcere et Vinculus	monodrama	c. 1982	Wilde's words arranged into a libretto by Gwen Harwood; for baritone, two string quartets and one percussion player^[10]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Sergei Prokofiev	Maddalena, Op. 13	opera	1911–13	1 act; his own libretto, after a blank verse play by Baroness Liven (Magda Gustavovna Liven-Orlova), which was based on Wilde's play; composed 1911, partly orchestrated 1912, revised 1913; never performed in Prokofiev's lifetime, despite some attempts; his widow Lina asked Edward Downes to complete it in 1976; concert reading, Manchester, 22 December 1978, under Downes, for a BBC radio broadcast on 25 March 1979; premiere stage performance Graz Opernhouse, 28 November 1981
Alexander von Zemlinsky	Eine florentinische Tragödie, Op. 16	opera	1915–16	trans. Max Meyerfeld; premiered Stuttgart 30 January 1917, conducted by Max von Schillings; it was the fifth and most successful of Zemlinsky's seven completed operas and is among the key works of his oeuvre

Music_based_on_the_works_of_Oscar_Wilde

Music based on the works of Oscar Wilde

List of works

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Les Ballons

The Birthday of the Infanta

The Canterville Ghost

De Profundis

Endymion

E Tenebris

A Florentine Tragedy

La Fuite de la Lune

The Happy Prince

The Harlot's House

An Ideal Husband

The Importance of Being Earnest

Impression du matin

Impression: Le Réveillon

Le Jardin

Lady Windermere's Fan

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

Madonna mia

La Mer

The Nightingale and the Rose

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Requiescat

La Sainte Courtisane

Salome

The Selfish Giant

Sonnet on hearing the Dies Irae sung in the Sistine Chapel

The Sphinx

Symphony in Yellow

Poisoned Youth

Unclassified

References

Sources

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Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Renzo Bossi	Il Principe felice, Op. 52	radio opera	1950	1 act; broadcast 11 October 1951, RAI; libretto by Bossi after Wilde
Henry Hadley	The Golden Prince, Op. 69	cantata	1914	Soprano, baritone, SSAA chorus, orchestra; libretto by D. Stevens after Wilde; presented New York 1914^[12]
Bernard Herrmann	The Happy Prince	music for a narration	1945	for a recording of the story spoken by Bing Crosby and Orson Welles, with an orchestra conducted by Victor Young
Malcolm Williamson	The Happy Prince	opera	c. 1965	1 act; libretto adapted by the composer
Luis de Arquer	The Happy Prince	Piano- Music for a Journey	c. 2000
Stephen DeCesare	The Happy Prince	Musical Theatre (published at MTA Publishing)	c. 2013	www.mtapublishing.com

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Ronald Stevenson	The Harlot's House – Dance Poem after Oscar Wilde	chamber	1988	Free-bass accordion, timpani and percussion
Donald Swann	The Poetic Image: A Victorian Song Cycle	song cycle	1991	Swann set The Harlot's House, along with extracts from The Ballad of Reading Gaol and other texts by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, and John Clare

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Arthur Benjamin	An Ideal Husband	film score	1947	^[2]
Edison Denisov	An Ideal Husband	film score	1980	^[13]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Erik Chisholm	The Importance of Being Earnest	opera	1963
Vivian Ellis	Half in Ernest	musical	1958	^[2]
Benjamin Frankel	The Importance of Being Earnest	film score	1952
Lee Pockriss, Anne Croswell	Ernest in Love	musical	1960
Gerald Barry	The Importance of Being Earnest	opera	2011^[14]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Geoffrey Bush	Lord Arthur Savile's Crime	opera	1972	premiered London, Guildhall School of Music, 5 December 1972
Edwin Carr	Lord Arthur Savile's Crime	opera	1991	1 act, 8 scenes
Alexandre Tansman	Flesh and Fantasy	film score	1943	only the 2nd part of the 3-part film is based on Wilde's story^[2]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Renzo Bossi	Rosa rossa (Red Rose), Op. 18	opera	1910	also seen as L'Usinguolo e la rosa (The Nightingale and the Rose); one act; Bossi described it as a "poemetto lirico"; staged Turin 1938
Hooper Brewster-Jones	The Nightingale and the Rose	opera	1927	only an orchestral suite survives^[12]
Elena Firsova	The Nightingale and the Rose, Op. 46	chamber opera	1990–91	to her own English libretto based partly on Wilde's story, and partly on poetry by Christina Rossetti^[12]
Harold Fraser-Simson	The Nightingale and the Rose	ballet	1927	^[12]
Margaret Garwood	The Nightingale and the Rose	opera	1973	^[12]
Henry Hadley	The Nightingale and the Rose, Op. 54	cantata	1911	soprano solo, SSAA chorus, orchestra; libretto by E. W. Grant; performed New York 1911^[12]
Philip Hagemann	The Nightingale and the Rose	opera	2003	^[15]
Roger Hannay	The Nightingale and the Rose	stage and mixed media	1986	^[12]
Janis Kalnins	The Nightingale and the Rose	ballet	1938	^[12]
Jan Müller-Wieland	The Nightingale and the Rose	chamber opera	1996	1 act; 7 singers, percussion (3 gongs, 3 tamtams, marimba, vibraphone), cello or piano, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass; staged Darmstadt 1996^[12]
Bright Sheng	The Nightingale and the Rose	ballet	2007
Jonathan Rutherford	The Nightingale and the Rose	opera	1966	^[12]
Friedrich Voss	The Nightingale and the Rose	ballet	1961	staged Oberhausen 1962^[12]
Saltatio Mortis	Nachtigall und Rose	Medieval metal	2011	^[16]
Aziza Mustafa Zadeh	The Nightingale & The Rose	Jazz composition	2006	^[17]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Boris Arapov	The Picture of Dorian Gray	ballet	1971
Lowell Liebermann	The Picture of Dorian Gray	opera	1996	12 scenes; libretto by Liebermann based on the novel; commissioned by Opera Monte Carlo; premiered Salle Garnier, Monaco 8 May 1996; dedicated to Princess Caroline of Monaco; US premiere, Florentine Opera, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 5 February 1999
W. Arundel Orchard	The Picture of Dorian Gray	opera		3 acts; performed at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music 11 September 2019; unpublished
Hans Schaeuble	Dorian Gray, Op. 32	opera	1947–48
Herbert Stothart	The Picture of Dorian Gray	film score	1945
Stephen DeCesare	The Picture of Dorian Gray	musical theatre	2005	Published at MTA Publishing - mtapublishing.com
Randy Bowser	Dorian - the Remarkable Mister Gray	musical theatre	2008	Premiered in Salem, Oregon, in 2008; produced in Russian in Moscow, at the Stas Namin Theatre.^[18]^[19]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
George Butterworth	Requiescat	song	1911
Luigi Dallapiccola	Requiescat	choral	1957–58	Chorus and orchestra; the text includes Wilde's poem as well as words taken from the Gospel of Matthew and James Joyce^[11]
Otto Luening	Requiscat	song	1917	^[11]
George Frederick McKay	Requiescat	song	1932	^[11]
Ned Rorem	Requiescat	vocal	1997	Set for SATB and piano; Evidence of Things Not Seen is a cycle of 36 songs to texts by 24 authors, and includes solos, duos, trios and quartets; Requiescat is No. 8 of the "Middles" section of the cycle; the other songs include texts by W. H. Auden, Charles Baudelaire, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Colette, Stephen Crane, Paul Goodman, A. E. Housman, Langston Hughes, Rudyard Kipling, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Roethke, John Waldman, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth and others; premiered Carnegie Hall, January 1998^[20]
Erwin Schulhoff	Requiescat, Op. 15, No. 2	song	1914	Set to German words (Still, dass sie es nicht hört ..); No. 2 of Rosa Mystica, three songs to Wilde texts for alto voice and piano, Op. 15 (WV 33). The other two songs are Madonna mia (No. 1) and E tenebris (No. 3)^[11]
David Van Vactor	Requiescat	song	1932	^[21]
Raymond Wilding-White	Requiescat			^[20]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Henry Hadley	Salome, Op. 55	symphonic poem	1905	this was written after Hadley had seen a production of Oscar Wilde's play, and was a favourite among his own compositions^[22]
Richard Strauss	Salome, Op. 54	opera	1905	trans. Hedwig Lachmann; premiered Dresden 1905. This opera is by far the best known musical adaptation of a work of Oscar Wilde.
Antoine Mariotte	Salomé	opera	1905	premiered 1908; he was involved in a debate with Richard Strauss to prove that his music was written earlier than Strauss's version, also written in 1905

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Eric Coates	The Selfish Giant – A Phantasy	orchestra	1925	^[23]
Dan Goeller	The Selfish Giant	orchestra	2011	Official Website^[24] Children's book/CD, with illustrations by Chris Beatrice^[25]
Jenő Hubay	Az önző óriás (Ger. Der selbstsüchtige Riese; Eng. The Selfish Giant), Op. 124	opera	1934	1 act; libretto by László Márkus and Jenő Mohácsi after the story by Wilde
Graeme Koehne	The Selfish Giant	ballet	1983	choreography by Graeme Murphy^[26]
Jim and Dee Patton	The Selfish Giant	Rock opera	2008	Official Website^[27] Performed by Bongo And the Point^[28]
Stephen DeCesare	The Selfish Giant	Musical theatre	2010	Published by MTA Publishing – www.mtapublishing.com^[29]

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Pierre Capdevielle	Deux Apologues d'Oscar Wilde (Two Moral Stories of Oscar Wilde)	recitation for voice and orchestra	1930–32
Francis George Scott	Idyll	song		unpublished

Composer	Title	Genre	Date	Notes
Granville Bantock	The Sphinx	song cycle	1941	for baritone or contralto with orchestra
Alexander Mosolov	The Sphinx	cantata	1925	set to a Russian translation of Wilde's poem as a graduation exercise