I rate the Britten rather highly...
What interests me most - in my own work I mean - is where music and
poetry, as generally understood meet
Was in Bath recently, just after the annual outbreak of Austenitis
learned the collective plural "bonnets" for those who worship Jane
L
On 05/10/2015, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Or it could be that if one is making a primarily musical piece, then the
> demands of the music should come first.
>
> I am more interested in matching mathematics with the words i.e. meeting
> the poetry half-way as it were. It might make for some interesting music.
>
> How do you rate Britten's treatment of Donne et al?
>
> BTB, one of my English teachers said that second-rate novels make better
> TV/film. I came to think of the work as more of a contested site. The
> better the novel, the stronger the feelings engendered when constructing a
> translation into a different genre. See any film or TV version of a Jane
> Austen novel and the Janeite hysteria that usually accompanies it.
>
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 1:11 PM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Some years ago, I went to a conference on this and related matters at
>> Warwick, though memory details have fled; where David Harsent, speaking
>> of
>> his collaboration with Birtwhistle, said – I hope I quote him fairly –
>> that
>> the poet must expect his work to be altered by the compose because.the
>> composers' needs have priority
>>
>> I have no trouble him thinking that for himself and HB, consenting adults
>> and all that, but was put out by the idea that a pecking order might
>> exist
>> for all of us with composers always on top....
>>
>> I'd been thinking about this quite a bit, though my notes, if I still
>> have
>> them, are packed away. Two things such as they are I remember
>>
>> I am more or less appalled by Vaughan Williams treatment of On Wenlock
>> Edge. Housman was a rather midling poet; but he deserved better
>> and Purcell's Dido's Lament, and Purcell's treatment in general of Nahum
>> Tate makes, to adapt a supposed remark of Beecham on Wagner, Tate sound a
>> lot better than he would sound on his own.
>>
>> L
>>
>>
>> On 2 October 2015 at 12:47, Patrick McManus
>> <[log in to unmask]
>> >
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Hi Roger in my very umble umble experience there are levels of setting
>> > -sometimes a swish of drum/guitar gentle accompaniment helps this aged
>> > performer at my local music club
>> > cheers P most ancient also I like the work of aslak vaalkapa (spelling?
>> > )
>> > aha Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, where nature is incorporated
>> > but I suppose we can enter into libretti (spelling ?0 end of thought
>> > -off
>> > to cafe for lunch feast!
>> >
>> > -----Original Message----- From: Roger Day
>> > Sent: Friday, October 2, 2015 12:26 PM
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Subject: Re: Lyrics etc
>> >
>> > Interesting note abt the Classical people.
>> >
>> > Looking at the scores of, say, Frank Bridge or Stravinski - or even the
>> > wilder shores of avante-garde composers - there's no reason why
>> "classical"
>> > composers could not produce a decent fit for any set of words they
>> > wanted
>> > to set to music without, as you say, torturing the syntax.
>> >
>> > I wrote my own words this time, and I had to do a little dance fitting
>> the
>> > words to music and vice versa.
>> >
>> > Currently I'm adding phrasing, articulation and dynamics. I will
>> > produce
>> > the proper article before Christmas.
>> >
>> > On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > Roger - from my humble experience, I can tell you a tale relating to yr
>> >> question.
>> >>
>> >> Over the years, both jazz composers/singers and classical composers
>> >> have
>> >> set some of my work to music. The jazz people stuck to the words and
>> >> the
>> >> structure of the poems, simply hearing the existing rhythms and
>> >> cadence,
>> >> and adding notes to them. However, the classical people wrote their
>> >> own
>> >> music and squeezed my lines in to fit, torturing my syntax and making
>> >> little sense of my structure to overlay theirs. Grrrr ... I wasn't
>> happy.
>> >>
>> >> The happiest I've been is for a ballad I wrote as a poem which has
>> >> been
>> >> sung and recorded by a couple of folksinger/songwriter people. But
>> >> that
>> >> was
>> >> an instance where I actually wrote a strict structure, very
>> >> traditional
>> >> and
>> >> complete.
>> >>
>> >> If it turns out well and highlights the true values already in the
>> >> poem,
>> >> nobody should object. But if you wiggle the words around to make it
>> >> fit,
>> >> then they'd have cause for complaint.
>> >>
>> >> Andrew
>> >>
>> >> On 1 October 2015 at 20:48, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Hi,
>> >> >
>> >> > I have de-lurked from my silence in order to ask a question.
>> >> >
>> >> > In my middle-aged madness, I have embarked on a career of composing
>> >> music.
>> >> > For my first piece, I have written some verses and composed some
>> lines -
>> >> > much in the manner of Schubert.
>> >> >
>> >> > I was reading up on Schubert and Goethe, and it appears that the
>> latter
>> >> > deliberately composed poetry to be modified that it could be set to
>> >> music.
>> >> >
>> >> > The question I have is, modulo any copyright concerns, are any
>> >> > modern
>> >> poets
>> >> > out there who would be amenable to such a strategy?
>> >> >
>> >> > How might, say, someone like Prynne react if I did set his poetry to
>> >> music
>> >> > but, along the way, managed to make the poetry serve the music?
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Is this impossible with modern poets and poetry?
>> >> >
>> >> > Regards Roger
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>> --
>> If you have received from me a bogus email offering passworded files, I
>> do
>> apologise. It was not I; but I am sorry.
>> Just delete the horrid thing, please.
>> And please let me know if it happens again.
>> It shouldn't happen again but then it shouldn't have happened the first
>> time.
>>
>> L
>>
>
--
If you have received from me a bogus email offering passworded files, I do
apologise. It was not I; but I am sorry.
Just delete the horrid thing, please.
And please let me know if it happens again.
It shouldn't happen again but then it shouldn't have happened the first
time.
L
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