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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.