Dear All,
Subjective aside:I found Ned Rorem's rendering of Despair's speech
moving when performed at a memorial service. Beware my error: after the
service, like a typical professor, I bustled up to the grieving husband
and said that after all, Despair is a vice and is tempting Red Cross to
commit suicide, so what Despair says may not represent Spenser's last
word on the subject of death.I should have been delighted that a
non-humanist thought of Spenser at all.
Carol
[log in to unmask] wrote:
> Humphrey Tonkin would be the one to know. Where is he now? Some years
> ago, when the MLA met in Washington DC, Humphrey arranged for a short
> performance at the Folger Library by musicians from SUNY Purchase,
> including some settings of Spenserian texts by late Renaissance
> composers. While I'm not sure that he would know about any and all
> available recordings, I don't know of a better authority. But wait: who
> were the Four Hims who performed at the Yale conference, back in the
> 90s? David Richardson and Donald Cheney, and perhaps Humphrey, and who
> else? -- well acquainted with early music.
>
> But if it were up to me, David, I would go after some modern settings,
> or seek out some musical students who might step up to the challenges
> presented in the Bower of Bliss.
>
> Cheers, Jon Q.
>
> --- On *Tue, 6/29/10, Kenneth Gross /<[log in to unmask]>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: Kenneth Gross <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: musical Spenser
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 7:40 AM
>
> I've no direct answer to David's query, but there's a useful website
> to look at:
>
> http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/
>
> This allows you to search for settings of poems by particular poets or
> composers or even genres, and then alongside each song-setting it
> pulls up there's a link that allows you to search for CDs that might
> contain the particular song. I checked just now under S/Spenser, and
> mostly what they have are contemporary settings of Spenserian texts
> (including a bit of Despair's sermon to RCK) by composers such as Ned
> Rorem and Mark Blitzstein, nothing for Gibbons, Lawes, et cie., but
> the website itself announces it's not comprehensive.
>
> Ken Gross
>
> On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 10:27 AM, David Miller <[log in to unmask]
> <[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
> > In the Spenser Encyclopedia article on 'music', John Hollander
> mentions
> > several settings for Spenserian verse (by George Kirbye, Richard
> Carlton,
> > Orlando Gibbons, and Henry Lawes).
> > Does anyone happen to know whether digital recordings of any or
> all of these
> > are currently available?
> >
> > David Lee Miller
> > Carolina Distinguished Professor of English & Comparative Literature
> > Director, Center for Digital Humanities at South Carolina
> > University of South Carolina
> > Columbia, SC 29208
> > (803) 777-4256
> > FAX 777-9064
> > please note new email address: [log in to unmask]
> <[log in to unmask]>
> > Here lies an honest miller, And that is strange.
> > --Essex gravestone, c. 1450
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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