Gertrude Fragments

Matthew Jocelyn and Brett Dean after William Shakespeare (E)

There are theories, studies and books galore about Hamlet; they pore over his every word, examine who he is, what his motivations might be, the nature of his character, his madness, etc. This made his character somehow easier to imagine. In preparing for my Hamlet opera, I felt a strong need to shine a light on some of the other characters; to get to grips with what their musical voices might be. The suite of brief songs, Gertrude Fragments, was written for mezzo soprano and guitar, in a tribute to the Elizabethan lute song tradition (thinking especially of Shakespeare’s great contemporary, John Dowland). They were written for my daughter, Lotte Betts-Dean and guitarist Andrey Lebedev and premiered by them at the Royal Academy of Music, London in early 2016. These five miniatures attempt to illuminate the guilt-ridden yet tragically helpless figure of Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, as she tries to mark sense of her “too much changed” son's behaviours and actions.