Poulenc/Handel text settings

[Re...@aol.com]

I strongly disagree with the idea that anyone should try to "fix" Poulenc's
shifting of Latin accents. I doubt very much that it results from a
misunderstanding of Latin caused by French being his native language.

That seems to me to be similar to saying that a composer who uses dissonance
does so because he or she does not know any better.

I might be more willing to be persuaded by the arguments that Handel's text
settings were the result of his incomplete understanding of English. Even
then, however, I would want to know (and, in fact, am very interested in
finding out!) if we have any reliable examples of how English in his time was
pronounced and inflected. Then we could compare them and perhaps draw some
reasonable conclusions. Even then, he would not be the only Baroque composer
to place musical considerations above textual ones.

I am pretty resistant to the idea that Poulenc's placement of the accents was
accidental (sorry, I couldn't resist...). As mentioned before on this list,
his association with the same ideas that resulted in cubism in painting seems
to me to be a much more compelling explanation. Many of the poets whose
poems he set in his songs had the same influences.

Reg Unterseher

[The Ferret]

Re...@aol.com wrote:

>I might be more willing to be persuaded by the arguments that Handel's text
>settings were the result of his incomplete understanding of English. Even
>then, however, I would want to know (and, in fact, am very interested in
>finding out!) if we have any reliable examples of how English in his time was
>pronounced and inflected. Then we could compare them and perhaps draw some
>reasonable conclusions. Even then, he would not be the only Baroque composer
>to place musical considerations above textual ones.

You can always look at a comparable period of "real" English
composers, and a look at Purcell turns up pretty much the accents we
expect.