I heard a R4 production of Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea. I havent read
it and found almost everyone and thing in it a bit odd
It stayed with me though but as it has stayed I have begun to think that
there must be a lot more to it than that. I got a story and suggestions of
subplots. I suspect it was greatly simplified.
Generally, and we are I know some distance from Poetry or Music now, I'd
prefer a reading of the original. Ulysses was good and I say that though I
don't much like Ulysses.
L
On 5 October 2015 at 15:36, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I can’t really speak to the potty & song situation, but I tend to agree
> with the comment about film/TV from lesser fiction (although I think Game
> of Thrones is a bit note complex, as I find the novels quite complex (&
> although I roy then series, I also continually note how it simplifies,to
> its loss, the novels).
> I think that the problem arises most when a truly auteurist director takes
> on a fine fiction: 2 artistic creators at odds. I alway think back to
> McCVabe & Mrs Miller, a magnificent film based on a paperback original that
> probably provided little ore than a plot outline…
>
> Doug
> On Oct 5, 2015, at 2:59 AM, 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
> >>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2
> (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Done in by creation itself.
>
> I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
> The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
> We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
>
> Robert Kroetsch.
>
--
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.Please blame gmail! and if you have dealings with British Gas and HSBC
and therefore have data about you on their system take heart from knowing
that they accepted that bogus email as reliable
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