Ellington's Names for Sections of the Suite

MERCEDES ELLINGTON: There are twelve pieces that are on there. All of them are instrumentals, and they are descriptions of the various characters of Shakespeare.

I mean, he would describe "Hank Cinq" and he would describe a "Sonnet for Sister Kate," and he would describe "Lady Mac." And "The Telecasters" is an interesting piece because it combines Iago with the three witches, and he felt that the four of them had something in common because they foresaw, or had really shaped, the future. They were telecasters—they shaped the future of the people they were involved with.

He gets Cleopatra on the Nile. You know, his musical thing about Cleo is she's on the Nile and she's got the fans, the Nubians are fanning her, and we don't know whether she's alone. We don't know whether it's Antony with her, whether it's Mark Antony or whether it's Caesar. We have "The Star-crossed Lovers" in Romeo and Juliet.

And even the titles that he chose to name are peculiar in their way of his take on these characters. Such as, the first piece, "Such Sweet Thunder"—"such sweet thunder" is a line from Midsummer Night's Dream. The piece is about Othello, and the description, the words "such sweet thunder," is the way he felt the words of Othello should be described when Othello asks Desdemona's father for her hand in marriage, because he obviously couldn't refuse. And so it must have been fabulous, so this is "such sweet thunder" to him. And then later on he does another piece on Othello called "In Search of a Moor," A-M-O-U-R or A M-O-O-R, and he loved the kind of play on words, which was the kind of thing that Shakespeare does. I'm sure when he came across Shakespeare, he must have said "Oh my God, I'm home!" He must have had a fit and been forever attached and in love with this guy.

"Madness in Great Ones" is about Hamlet. Of course I think that Lady Mac was a little mad herself, but she's described in another piece just called "Lady Mac." "Sonnet for Sister Kate" is about the shrew.