Actually, Anny, Britten did quite a good job of setting Hardy. Funny
composer, Britten, I really don't like much of his lauded stuff, but
he had a beautiful ear for setting complex poetry: Donne, Hopkins,
Shakespeare etc, which is a task a lot of composers can't quite
manage, usually they're better at setting simple language.
Mind you, what you won't find in Britten's setting of Hardy, as I
recall them, are the fiddle tunes that echo behind the poems, anymore
than you'll find the ballad refrains that play in the background of
the Shakespeare songs.
At least, that is what I remember of the Britten settings, I'd have to
go back and listen to them again to be sure.
Best
Dave
2008/4/29 Anny Ballardini <[log in to unmask]>:
> Such a singing and musical poem, it couldn't but be put into music!
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >
> > At the Railway Station, Upway
> >
> > 'There is not much that I can do,
> > For I've no money that's quite my own!'
> > Spoke up the pitying child--
> > A little boy with a violin
> > At the station before the train came in,--
> > 'But I can play my fiddle to you,
> > And a nice one 'tis, and good in tone!'
> >
> > The man in the handcuffs smiled;
> > The constable looked, and he smiled too,
> > As the fiddle began to twang;
> > And the man in the handcuffs suddenly sang
> > With grimful glee:
> > 'This life so free
> > Is the thing for me!'
> > And the constable smiled, and said no word,
> > As if unconscious of what he heard;
> > And so they went on till the train came in--
> > The convict, and boy with the violin.
> >
> > Thomas Hardy
> >
> > And set to music by Benjamin Britten in 'Winter Words'
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star!
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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