There are only three sound effects used in the entire play, the shuffle [Beckett's descriptive stage direction) of Croak's feet as he arrives and departs, the thud/dropping of his club (staff?)
For entertainment, Croak, (a Beckettian ‘old King Cole’) has only two old stalwarts to call on, his minstrels, Joe (Words) and Bob (Music).
Word's repeatedly addressing Croak as "My Lord" and the strange formality to the domination both Words/Joe and Music/Bob seem accustomed to enduring adds an ancient (medieval?)
The modern shortened names (Joe, Bob) add a humorous contemporary contrast to the generally ancient (or timeless) seeming circumstances.
In fact his utterances throughout the play are terse: moans, groans and murmurings mainly along with a few short lines (commands, entreaties or outbursts).
The play opens with Music – a small orchestra – tuning up much to the irritation of Words who is trying to rehearse a soliloquy on the unlikely theme of sloth.
Joe is much like Malvolio, the strait-laced, pompous steward in the household of Lady Olivia, efficient but also self-righteous, with a poor opinion of drinking, singing, and fun.
There are moments of jealousy and competitiveness between Words and Music that seem at times relatively overt, adding dimension to their relationship.
Stefan-Brook Grant has proposed the term "fugue",[12] an imitative compositional technique, to describe the initial attempts of Joe and Bob to work together.
"[11] Croak makes no comment whatsoever after they have finished but one senses approval because he opens up an altogether more intimate topic: "the face".
[15] Joe's response is poetic enough but his description of the face seen by starlight is presented in "a cold, rather precise and prosaic"[16] manner; old habits die hard.
Bob again recommends a softer tone but Joe immediately blurts out the description he believes his master is looking for, (a somewhat oblique one) that of a young man who, having just experienced an orgasm, and taken a moment to gather himself, now looks again on the face of his lover lying together with her in a field of rye.
He describes the woman's "black disordered hair"[17] and the look of concentration on her face; eyes closed, (Croak calls out in anguish: "Lily!
Suddenly Bob bursts in and interrupts this scene of coitus at the very point of climax presenting it as a moment of triumph, drowning out Joe's protestations.
With the aid of Bob the two compose a second "aria"/"song" which they perform together as before describing the man's eyes moving down the woman's body toward "that wellhead".
"[21] Croak's club slips from his hand and we hear it land on the ground but he is not dead; the "'morose delectation' of remembered bygone sexual encounters has overwhelmed him".
"It seems [Joe] has lost his power to express himself through words and, in contrast to his initial protestations during Music's tuning session, he now implores [Bob] to continue, as if admitting defeat.
[28] Of course, a theme running through all of Beckett's writing has been the impossibility of meaningful expression through words alone and, in that respect, Joe doesn't disappoint.
Viewed purely as a means of communication, people revert to lovemaking to express their feelings, to 'say' what words can't say.
"Words, in the end, are [Beckett’s] material – not as literature but in terms of something akin to silence; the desire is not to control or empower but to listen.
"[31] It is not so surprising then, when Katharine Worth asked Beckett about the relationship between the two figures in this radio play, he said: "Music always wins.
"The concerns of Words and Music are clearly related to Beckett’s general preoccupation with the limitations of the expressive powers of language.
"[36] Irrespective of how much support he did or did not get, John became diffident about his score (despite it having pleased Beckett at the time) and, when Katharine Worth asked his permission to use it in a later production she was politely told "that he had withdrawn it.
"[37] Worth approached Samuel Beckett to see "if there was any composer he would care to recommend; he suggested Humphrey Searle",[38] one of the UK's foremost pioneers of serial music (whom he had met once in Paris[39]), as a suitable replacement.
Feldman's idiom is slow, shapeless and tentative; his mastery lies in "probing" sound; its material and sensuous characteristics, the haunting suggestion that his notes are surrounded by silences.
In an interview Feldman stated: Creating a character whose sole means of expression approximates dialogue/response to others through musical gestures is enormously challenging and fascinating.
Perhaps future composers might consider imagined text responses as a starting point to approximate speech more overtly if this is deemed appropriate and useful.
The tendency of Feldman to be somewhat long-winded and expansive perhaps does not ideally balance the brevity of speech and stretches things out a bit needlessly.
The scalar approach Feldman uses has great discipline and a certain hypnotic quality but it also may be a bit predictable and overly simple a vocabulary for such a complex and enigmatic work.
Beckett's impossible yet thrilling and inspiring lifelong search (technical and otherwise) resulted in a body of brilliant works that still puzzle and amaze no matter how much analysis is applied to them.