ABSTRACT
Although incidental music formed an integral part of Victorian theatrical productions, there is, as yet, only a limited body of scholarship that addresses such fundamental questions as the circumstances of its creation, what kind of music was used, how it was fitted to the stage action, or how it contributed to the total dramatic effect. While a considerable amount of Victorian theatre music survives, much of it exists in a fragmentary or incomplete form, making it a difficult, even exasperating, subject of study. This situation is exacerbated by the often makeshift circumstances that surrounded the composition of incidental music, in which ad hoc decisions had to be made at the last moment, rapid insertions and deletions fashioned, and connecting musical tissue quickly concocted. The musical scores that have survived in a form sufficiently complete that they can serve as the basis of an extended study are relatively few; and even with the complete score to hand there comes the additional problem of reconstructing the specific production for which the music was composed. 1
