I like your analogy of Ambroise Thomas 'sanitising' Hamlet. I do not know - did Somervell alter any of Tennyson's verses textually or was it simply a case of selection/reordering? If the latter, then in defence of the composer I suppose he felt he was distilling the essence of the original down into a logical/coherent/manageable sequence.
Obviously times do change, and in isolation (and ignorance), I have to say these verses alone do not resonate for me in my time as they obviously did for a wider public 150 years ago. But thankyou once again for your post - which pointed out just how wrong I was in the gentlest, most courteous manner possible!
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