A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Tune (Entr'acte)

TUNE. ACT-TUNE (Fr. Entr'acte, Germ. Zwischenspiel), sometimes also called Curtain Tune. A piece of instrumental music performed while the curtain or act-drop is down between the acts of a play. In the latter half of the 17th century and first quarter of the 18th century act-tunes were composed specially for every play. The compositions so called comprised, besides the act-tunes proper, the 'first and second music,' tunes played at intervals to beguile the tedium of waiting for the commencement of the play,—for it must be remembered that the doors of the theatre were then opened an hour and a half, or two hours before the play commenced—and the overture. The act-tunes and previous music were principally in dance measures. Examples may be seen in Matthew Lock's 'Instrumental Musick used in The Tempest,' appended to his 'Psyche,' 1675; in Henry Parceli's 'Dioclesian,' 1691; and his 'Collection of Ayres composed for the Theatre,' 1697; and in two collections of 'Theatre Music,' published early in the 18th century; as well as in several MS. collections. During the greater part of the last century movements from the sonatas of Corelli, Handel, Boyce, and others were used as act-tunes, and at present the popular dance music of the day is so employed. But act-tunes, now styled 'Entr'actes,' have been occasionally composed in modern times; the finest specimens are those composed by Beethoven for Goethe's 'Egmont,' by Schubert for 'Rosamunde,' by Weber for 'Preciosa,' by Schumann for 'Manfred,' and by Mendelssohn for Shakspeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' including the Scherzo, the Allegro appassionato, the Andante tranquillo and the world-renowned Wedding March, which serves the double purpose of act-tune and accompaniment to the wedding procession of Theseus and Hippolita, the act-drop rising during its progress. Sir A. Sullivan has also written Entr'actes for 'The Tempest,' 'The Merchant of Venice,' and 'Henry VIII'—some of which will be remembered when his operettas have necessarily yielded to the changes of fashion.

[ W. H. H. ]