Poetry set to Music

[Will Dockery]

Interesting piece on "Poetry set to music" from the Usenet Archives:

http://soc.culture.irish.narkive.com/3Vgjj27R/poetry-set-to-music.2

mariav
8 years ago
Post by don freeman
Leonard Cohen's Suzanne was originally a poem
Donovan put Shakespear's Under the Greenwood Tree to music
Phil Ochs, aside from the Highwayman, did The Bells by Poe
Bob Marley's War was a poetic speech set to music

Yes,Leonard Cohen has had books of poetry books published,a
novel("Beautiful Losers"),like Richard Farina,who released LPs(with
wife Mimi, and "Been Down----",a novelHadju writes of the Dylan-Farina
association in "Positively Fourth Street").All hold well after the
years.Ginsberg put Blake to music,eccentric,even for me(I sent for a
disc "London",and "The Lamb" by Blake(Out of Print,under the name "The
Crackers"),read at a coffeehouse,sold 30 copies of a disc reading
playing Blakesongs,one by Dylan-"Tommorow is a Long Time",put new
music to"God moves in mysterious ways"),Van Morrison recorded the
great one,Yeats,""Your original Face"pn "Too Long in Exile",on "A
Sense of Wonder" recited with a la Spector sound two passages-"The
Price of Experience"&"The Slave Grinding at the Mill"-great,remember
Sebastian Cabot did a recitation? to music(a novelty for him or
us.Who's next,Ray Stevens?).Judy Collins did a few things(I don't like
her,she'll live),a band whose name I can't recall did a
vicious,ominous Blake song,"The Tyger",McClure played something with
his poetry ,didn't he(Bob Dylan told him that was the way,put the
poems to music,Bob's done ok.mv
--
Shark Pact Manifesto / Will Dockery & Shadowville All-Stars:
http://youtu.be/Ft3X3kC6nr4

[RVG]

The Waterboys did a great recording of Yeats' The Stolen Child.
http://youtu.be/mVSN9DMvl6I

In French, Félix Leclerc gave us Villon's Testament.
http://youtu.be/R_gyOi3zfMw

From Villon, Brassens did La Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis
http://youtu.be/Ip7fIB4aOeA

Benjamain Britten composed a beautiful suite from Rimbaud's Illuminations.
http://youtu.be/Z3aG8QtMLFs

Then of course Léo Ferré:
http://youtu.be/m91kHnqQEis

Gainsbourg with Nerval in rock'n'roll:
http://youtu.be/6UioizKceq4

And Verlaine:
http://youtu.be/LGslTn8r41w


--

«Les mots qui vont surgir savent de nous des choses que nous ignorons
d'eux.»
René Char

http://www.jamendo.com/fr/artist/336871/regis-v.-gronoff
http://soundcloud.com/rvgronoff
http://bluedusk.blogspot.com/

[Will Dockery]

"RVG" <not....@themoment.invalid.org> wrote in message
news:k7qoh1$7qo$1...@blueduskconspiracy.eternal-september.org...

Beautiful stuff... thank you!

--
Music & poetry by Will Dockery:
http://www.reverbnation.com/willdockery

[RVG]

> Beautiful stuff... thank you!
>

What I think is the most beautiful melody based on a poem of Verlaine:
"L'Heure exquise", by Reynaldo Hahn

http://youtu.be/7HI2hmM0EKk

[Will Dockery]

On Wednesday, November 14, 2012 1:06:48 PM UTC-5, RVG wrote:

> > Beautiful stuff... thank you!
>
> >
>
>
>
> What I think is the most beautiful melody based on a poem of Verlaine:
>
> "L'Heure exquise", by Reynaldo Hahn
>
>
>
> http://youtu.be/7HI2hmM0EKk

Ah, Verlaine... digging it, and he was unfortunately somewhat overshadowed
by hois famous friend Rimbaud.

I think I'll look around and see what of his poetry has made it online in
English translation, seems a good time for a retrospective.

--
Over You / Will Dockery & The Shadowville All-Stars
http://youtu.be/4rvCp_xzWH8

[Will Dockery]

"Peter J Ross" <p...@example.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrnka7q...@pjr.no-ip.org...
> In alt.arts.poetry.comments on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:06:45 +0100, RVG

> <not....@themoment.invalid.org> wrote:
>
>> What I think is the most beautiful melody based on a poem of Verlaine:
>> "L'Heure exquise", by Reynaldo Hahn
>>
>> http://youtu.be/7HI2hmM0EKk
>

> It certainly has a beautiful melody, but it's a little too cloying for
> my taste.
>
> I prefer Fauré's setting of the same words, sung here by the great
> Elly Ameling:
>
> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70mKaTxisNs>
>
> The tune is less obviously attractive than Hahn's, but I think it
> stands up to repeated hearings better. Over the past thirty years,
> it's certainly become one of the tunes I'm most likely to sing in the
> bath!
>
> Verlaine's whole aesthetic theory (as summarised in "L'Art Poétique")
> rejected the obviously beautiful in favour of the infinitely subtle,
> so he might well have agreed with my preference.

Wow!

That one is pretty good, PJR... thanks for turning us on to it.

[RVG]

Le 14/11/2012 19:56, Peter J Ross a écrit :
> In alt.arts.poetry.comments on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:06:45 +0100, RVG
> <not....@themoment.invalid.org> wrote:
>

>> What I think is the most beautiful melody based on a poem of Verlaine:
>> "L'Heure exquise", by Reynaldo Hahn
>>
>> http://youtu.be/7HI2hmM0EKk
>

> It certainly has a beautiful melody, but it's a little too cloying for
> my taste.
>
> I prefer Fauré's setting of the same words, sung here by the great
> Elly Ameling:
>
> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70mKaTxisNs>
>
> The tune is less obviously attractive than Hahn's, but I think it
> stands up to repeated hearings better. Over the past thirty years,
> it's certainly become one of the tunes I'm most likely to sing in the
> bath!
>
> Verlaine's whole aesthetic theory (as summarised in "L'Art Poétique")
> rejected the obviously beautiful in favour of the infinitely subtle,
> so he might well have agreed with my preference.
>
>

And don't forget Stravinsky, in a very different approach:
http://youtu.be/QbP4LbLbkSg

[pc...@comcast.net]

I have a whole album of poems by H.D. Thoreau that I set to music quite some time ago.

http://home.comcast.net/~michael.cressey/thoreau.htm

Coincidentally, it's one of the few CDs that I've actually sold from my web site.

Mike C

[Will Dockery]

"RVG" <not....@themoment.invalid.org> wrote in message
news:k7qoh1$7qo$1...@blueduskconspiracy.eternal-september.org...

Thanks again, RVG, working my way through these slowly today, on a
Holliday...

--
Truck Stop Woman / Will Dockery & Henry Conley:
http://youtu.be/wGiuONOUeFk

[RVG]

Le 21/11/2012 22:57, Peter J Ross a écrit :
> In alt.arts.poetry.comments on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:25:51 +0100, RVG

> <not....@themoment.invalid.org> wrote:
>
>> And don't forget Stravinsky, in a very different approach:
>> http://youtu.be/QbP4LbLbkSg
>

> I hadn't heard that before. Thanks. Random thoughts and questions
> follow.
>
> Did Stravinsky set S. Mitoussoff's metrically exact translation or
> Verlaine's original?
>
> It's an impressive composition, especially if one takes into account
> its early date, but how well does it express what Verlaine meant?
>
> It sounds somewhat like an out-take from Rachmaninoff's Vespers,
> which is probably not how the successful courtship of a
> sixteen-year-old girl by a dissipated 35-year-old bisexual ought to
> sound. Or perhaps it's *exactly* how it ought to sound. /La Bonne
> Chanson/ is hardly sincere poetry. If Verlaine had *meant* all that
> sentimental nonsense it would be embarrassing to read or listen to.
>
> After listening to three excellent settings of this text, I wish
> Albert Roussel had had a go at it - or that Stravisnky had had a
> second go, maybe fifteen years later.
>
> It seems to me that nobody has done it perfectly yet.
>

Verlaine is already so musical, like Villon and Saint-John Perse, that
adding notes only tends to exaggerate the naturally delicate musicality
that is already contained in the verses.
I think Rimbaud, Mallarmé, even Baudelaire, are easier to put into
music, be they popular "chansons" or classical melodies, because the
texts are visionary but not so musical, with the exception of a rhythmic
quality.

Quick parenthesis: I'm trying to compose a sort of radio-play, a bit
like Dylan Thomas with Under Milk Wood, using some of my own unpublished
music (often some short classical pieces), sound effects found on public
domain sources and my own reading of selected poems from my last book
(link below).

It's definitely just a work in progress, but I think I'd appreciate that
my poems in English, that are very simple, short and intimate, would be
read by a native female speaker, preferably with a British
pronunciation. The French poems OTOH are more elaborate (it's my native
language and culture) combine the sense of majesty and the power of
nature of Saint-John Perse (evocation of an imaginary archaic world
where language is a recent invention and everything literally begs to be
named, including mocking and tricking gods) with strong anxiety
sometimes bordering horror (themes like war, dead children, lost
innocence, etc.) as in the German and Austrian poetry of the early 20th
century.

If the result is one day satisfying, it will be published under Creative
Commons licensing on Jamendo.

Being physically disabled makes live performances out of the question.

Link to the free book:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B88QOSeQYtU_c2U5TEdkSGFkaUE/edit?pli=1

Just click the printer icon to save to PDF.

[RVG]

Le 23/11/2012 21:40, Peter J Ross a écrit :
> In alt.arts.poetry.comments on Thu, 22 Nov 2012 03:46:41 +0100, RVG

> I don't know more of Saint-John Perse's work than I've seen in old
> anthologies, which probably include only extracts from early works.
> Villon doesn't seem to me to be a particularly musical-sounding
> poet, if compared with Machaut or Charles d'Orléans for example.
> However, I have the disadvantage of not being a frequent speaker or
> reader of French, so my ear may be poorly tuned.

>
>> I think Rimbaud, Mallarmé, even Baudelaire, are easier to put into
>> music, be they popular "chansons" or classical melodies, because
>> the texts are visionary but not so musical, with the exception of a
>> rhythmic quality.
>

> Best of all from that time for musicians is probably Maeterlinck - a
> symbolist poet who happened to write tolerably dramatic prose.

>
>> Quick parenthesis: I'm trying to compose a sort of radio-play, a
>> bit like Dylan Thomas with Under Milk Wood, using some of my own
>> unpublished music (often some short classical pieces), sound
>> effects found on public domain sources and my own reading of
>> selected poems from my last book (link below).
>

> That's the kind of project I'd attempt if I were less lazy.

>
>> It's definitely just a work in progress, but I think I'd appreciate
>> that my poems in English, that are very simple, short and intimate,
>> would be read by a native female speaker, preferably with a British
>> pronunciation.
>

> There are readers of AAPC who could do that for you, but what
> variety of British pronunciation do you want?

>
>> The French poems OTOH are more elaborate (it's my native language
>> and culture) combine the sense of majesty and the power of nature
>> of Saint-John Perse (evocation of an imaginary archaic world where
>> language is a recent invention and everything literally begs to
>> be named, including mocking and tricking gods) with strong anxiety
>> sometimes bordering horror (themes like war, dead children, lost
>> innocence, etc.) as in the German and Austrian poetry of the early
>> 20th century.
>

> Coincidentally, I was listening to Stefan George (set by Schoenberg)
> just a few hours ago. "Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten...."
>
> I'm not qualified to judge your French poems. After a brief glance,
> your English poems seem to suffer from occasional clichéd phrases
> and a preponderance of abstract nouns. I'm sorry to say that they
> don't interest me much.
>

It's the general problem, or challenge, or trying to write some sort of
poetry in a foreign language.
Rilke's Vergers sounds quite bland especially compared to masterpieces
like the Duino Sonnets.

I like to use English to express tiny things that are close to me, more
intimate, and you're right that for that I want to use more abstract
words. In English I can only use images, unlike in French where I use
words in all their acceptions and meanings at the same time, more like
in cubism and the Sufi and troubadour tradition of the language of the
birds. I extensively studied etymology and my poetic word is situated
somewhere before history, like right when men discovered writing and in
a state of consciousness close to wake dream that I tell on a beat
("Souffle" is a musical piece where the "-" is to be understood and used
as a musical pause. The poem itself, although it sounds epic, is really
a piece of jazz with words and patterns of words used like riffs that
open to different variations each time they come back). or through the
more classical meters and rimes (I would be unable to write
a classical sonnet in English, but two of the poems of my book are
written, one in alexandrine verses, the other in alternate octo- and
decasyllabic riming verses in a rhythmic pattern close to Villon - but a
Villon who would have been through the 20th century wars like Georg Trakl.

>> If the result is one day satisfying, it will be published under
>> Creative Commons licensing on Jamendo.
>>
>> Being physically disabled makes live performances out of the
>> question.
>>
>> Link to the free book:
>>
>> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B88QOSeQYtU_c2U5TEdkSGFkaUE/edit?pli=1
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
Just click the printer icon to save to PDF.
>

> Done!