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David,The Harris anthems (especially the double-choir Faire is the Heaven) are a must, really stunning choral music. They've been recorded many times, and very well, though the best recordings (by the Cambridge Singers, say) certainly wouldn't be in public domain. I've never actually heard Greene's Amoretti settings, though I note in roaming around the net that Emma Kirkby recorded a bunch of them (Musica Oscura label, 070978). Greene was a wonderful composer of church music (Lord let me know mine end). Re. the Amoretti, there is also a choral setting of Like as the culver by Halsey Stevens, and one of The Hill of the Graces by Lennox Berkeley. One of Lawes's settings for George Sandys's Psalms is used for "Most glorious Lord of Life" on the website http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/m/g/mglolife.htm, I don't know with what legitimacy, though it sounds nice. Not surprisingly, this sonnet was set many times (John Rutter too). Apparently George Dyson wrote a setting of Prothalamion for Baritone and orchestra.HannibalOn Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 2:20 PM, David Miller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thank you, Hannibal.I'd be interested in any and all of the settings if we could get recordings that were usable in the public domain. The Spenser Archive is going to be open-access, so we can't be paying royalties . . .
On Jun 29, 2010, at 2:17 PM, Hannibal Hamlin wrote:
I organized and sang in the performance of musical settings of Spenser at the Yale conference at the Beinecke reception (don't remember the Four Hims, though I like the name!). There are more Spenser settings than you mention, David (a bunch of the Amoretti by Maurice Greene, for instance, and the brilliant anthems by W.H. Harris, "Faire is the heaven" and "Most glorious Lord of Life"), but I assume you're interested only in the seventeenth century ones? I'm not aware off hand of recordings of the madrigal settings (not among the greatest hits of the madrigal -- what tends to get recorded over and over), or of Lawes, who seems generally under-recorded. Making a new recording with Cambridge talent (generally a good place to find singers!) is probably the best idea anyway, since even if you could locate some recording with one or two Spenser settings on it, it might be a mediocre to dreadful performance. Early music performance has come a LONG way since LP-days.HannibalOn Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 2:03 PM, David Miller <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thank you, John, and Ken too for the lead on more modern settings.I am in fact looking into the possibility of getting the early modern settings recorded by some volunteers at Cambridge whose names I hesitate to publicize without their permission.The digital archive that the editors of the Oxford Spenser are constructing to accompany our edition will feature audio files--in some instances, for example, of modern poets reading favorite passages from Spenser--and recordings of early musical settings will make a nice addition. The problem with commercial recordings is of course one of copyright.D
On Jun 29, 2010, at 1:57 PM, [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]> 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]
> Here lies an honest miller, And that is strange.
> --Essex gravestone, c. 1450
>
>
>
>
--
Hannibal Hamlin
Associate Professor of English
Editor, Reformation
Organizer, The King James Bible and its Cultural Afterlife
http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/
The Ohio State University
164 West 17th Ave., 421 Denney Hall
Columbus, OH 43210-1340
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--
Hannibal Hamlin
Associate Professor of English
Editor, Reformation
Organizer, The King James Bible and its Cultural Afterlife
http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu/
The Ohio State University
164 West 17th Ave., 421 Denney Hall
Columbus, OH 43210-1340
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