That's interesting.
My German is pretty poor and I had some problems with Winterreise when I
found out what the translator says is being sung.
Same with Straus' 4 last songs...
But maybe I'm expecting equivalence of what I'm used to
L
On 2 October 2015 at 16:53, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I have to admit I haven’t had too much experience in this, Once a jazz
> composer wanted to work with my poetry, but told me that the rhythms of my
> poems were already too musical, or strong. I then wrote some simpler
> ‘song’-like lyrics for him, & he was working on them when he died suddenly.
> I was trying for a simpler line in the pieces I wrote for the project, but
> never heard the results.
>
> I admit I am not that interested in most classical settings for poems in
> English, which I can understand, as opposed, say, to some of the great song
> cycles in other languages where I hear the voice simply as an instrument…
>
> Doug
>
> On Oct 2, 2015, at 6:11 AM, 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.
L
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