Making music in dream time

Finding incidental music for the upcoming production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" wouldn't have been difficult for the University Theatre. Many composers have created music for Shakespeare's comedy, Felix Mendelssohn most famously. But perhaps no one's instrumentation has been as inventive as the university's own Robert Fruehwald's.

The directors' vision for the production called for sounds that were entirely natural. Needing to announce the entrance of the "rustics," the tradesmen bent on presenting a play, Fruehwald chose the sound most everyone knows how to make -- by blowing across the top of a bottle.

"They would have made music with what was around," he explained.

The fairies appear to the stratospheric whir created by rubbing a finger around the rim of a wine glass.

Fruehwald wanted the sound of trumpets, but not actual trumpets, to usher in the royals in the court of Athens. Reaching into a box near the piano in his office, he pulls out a shower hose and begins tooting out a fanfare.

All this "will make it sound different, which is what 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is," Fruehwald said.

Southeast Missouri State University's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" opens Oct. 24 at the Rose Theatre.

Finding constraints

Fruehwald originally intended the music to be played live during the performances, but the directors' staging prevented that. The music has been recorded along with the cast's singing of Shakespeare's lyrics. The cast will sing along to the recording during the performances.

Fruehwald says constraint is the one thing he needs to start writing a piece of music. "If I don't have one, I make one up," he said.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" comes with its own constraints: The play itself and the lyrics Shakespeare wrote.

Another of his new compositions, "What's An Orchestra?: A Brief History of the Symphony Orchestra," will premiere Friday during the Southeast Symphony Orchestra's "Family Favorites" concert at Academic Auditorium.

The constraint in the piece introducing the instruments was the narrative he asked fellow faculty member Paul Thompson to write.

One of Fruehwald's hallmarks and a strategy he thinks of as a constraint is the use of pre-existing melodies. They make the instruments in "What's an Orchestra?" all the more recognizable.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is being co-directed by Dr. Robert Dillon Jr. and Paul Zmolek, faculty members in the Department of Dance and Theatre. It does not exist in any time -- "It is in dream time," Zmolek said -- but the directors gave Fruehwald the injunction of writing music that sounds as if it might have been heard 200 years ago.

One of his challenges is that all three groups -- the rustics, the fairies and the royals -- are from different worlds.

The directors are enthusiastic about Fruehwald's music and about collaborating with him, set designer Rhonda Weller-Stilson and lighting/sound designer Phil Nacy on "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They have devoted whole rehearsal blocks to the movement and singing in the play.

"The blood, sweat and tears is creatively worth it," Dillon said.

Wrote music for 'Zaum'

Fruehwald wrote the music for the 2002 ballet "Zaum: Beyond Significance," co-created by Zmolek and Zmolek's wife, Josephine. He also has written music for the Memphis Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony and music played by the Southeast Symphony Orchestra and by fellow faculty members.

Fruehwald began writing music before he could read the notes, picking out tunes on the piano. "Since the age of 8 or 9 I wanted to be a composer," he said.

Now he writes on a computer, using a program called "Finale" that can play back the notes he strings together.

Fruehwald doesn't know why some musicians focus on playing and others on writing.

"When I listen to music, I wonder how I could make it better," he said.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182