# Works based on Poems



## Pantheon (Jun 9, 2013)

Having just recently discovered Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (the latter happens to be my favourite poet of all time), I was wondering if you had a special work based on a poem, text, play or novel that you like. 
It would be nice if you could comment on the poem at the same time as the music.

Regarding Copland and Emily Dickinson, and more specifically the final song "The Chariot" I find Copland's idea to prolong the final syllable of the poem ("eternity") very interesting as Dickinson's poem ends in a dash, with an incomplete sentence...


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

You count Britten's War Requiem, with settings of Wilfred Owen's poems
A favourite of mine


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Agree on the War Requiem, and place Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (perhaps) even higher.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Agree on the War Requiem, and place Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (perhaps) even higher.


Worth checking out. Thanks ;-)


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I assume you mean aside from Lieder and the like? There's quite a lot of poems that have been set to music, even a few in symphonies. 

There's always Chausson's "Poeme"...although I don't think it's exactly what you're after .


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## kelseythepterodactyl (Sep 5, 2013)

If you are into British poetry, you should look into some settings of Shakespeare. Here is a Schubert setting of "Who is Silvia?" (translated into German). Schubert really captures the flirty essence of the text.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Apparently Sorabji considered doing a tone poem on "War and Peace," but then felt that the book wasn't long enough to do justice to his music. 

On a more serious note, an obvious choice here is Brahms' German Requiem, which uses bits and pieces from the German translation of the Bible. And I suppose one could mention lieder of all sorts, though I suppose what the OP had in mind was instrumental music based on poems and novels?


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Poetry by Goethe set to music holds an attraction for me. I am looking for an album of Goethe's poems celebrating nature, without the romantic songs. I have considered this album by Prégardien, but it is not strictly nature songs:


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## Pantheon (Jun 9, 2013)

These answers are all superb ! And of course I include lieder in this topic (might I add that Ellen's songs by Schubert are based on Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake).



> If you are into British poetry, you should look into some settings of Shakespeare. Here is a Schubert setting of "Who is Silvia?" (translated into German). Schubert really captures the flirty essence of the text.


THANK YOU for this ! I really do love British poetry !

Also I was thinking about poets' contribution to opera libretti, such as Auden. He wrote the libretto for Stravinsky's _The Rake's Progress._


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## Guest (Sep 11, 2013)

Ah Pantheon, you like British poetry, do you? Then this is for you:
*William Walton*'s _Façade_, with poems by *Edith Sitwell*.


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## TudorMihai (Feb 20, 2013)

You can also try Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending or Enescu's Vox Maris.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Respighi's Il Tramonto (with a setting from P.B. Shelley) is one of my favorite of his works:


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Elgar's Dream of Geronitus, using the poem by John Henry Newman


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Debussy's Çinq Poèmes de Baudelaire are great.


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## nightscape (Jun 22, 2013)

Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony is based on Walt Whitman.


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## worov (Oct 12, 2012)

Liszt has made a symphony after Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia. He also wrote "Après une lecture de Dante", a piano piece from his Années de Pélerinage. I don't enjoy any of these pieces that much (not crazy about Liszt). I find Dante's poem amazing though. I may even say it's my favorite poem.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The Lagrime di San Pietro by Orlando di Lasso, a sequence of motets based on.the cycle of poems by Luigi Tansillo.

I find it a very moving piece of work, not solely from the point of view Lassus's setting, but also from the point of view of Tansillo's poems. I had no idea that the poems would be so evocative, both in the way they chart Peter's psychological defragmentation, and in the power of the metaphors -- the eyes of Jesus on the cross, the ice in the heart melting into a stream and so on and so forth. This is good stuff. One of the great joys of listening to madrigals is that it introduces you to some amazing poems.

Just lately I've been enjoying Britten's poetry settings of John Donne, and the poems in his op 60 Nocturne. One reason I find Britten rewarding is that Peter Pears was outstanding at words.


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## Pantheon (Jun 9, 2013)

> Just lately I've been enjoying Britten's poetry settings of John Donne, and the poems in his op 60 Nocturne. One reason I find Britten rewarding is that Peter Pears was outstanding at words.


Me too ! 

As for Dante by Liszt, I remember somebody performing that work in a concert and a musicologist exploring certain details. They were very interesting points on Hell and the rising towards Heaven.


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## Wicked_one (Aug 18, 2010)

Joseph Holbrooke set some Poe poems to music, including The Raven and The Bells.

The Bells was put to music by Rachmaninoff too.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Has anyone ever set T.S. Eliot to music, the wasteland for example?


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Sofia Gubaidulina did something so similar that you must have heard of it: _Hommage à TS Eliot_. It uses Eliot's _Four Quartets_. It is is a monumental and brilliant work, one of my favourite modern (to use a rather ambiguous label, but it gives you an idea) pieces.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Stravinsky set part of Eliot's Four Quartets for an a capella choral piece, _Anthem_.






Also of potential interest, although not strictly pertinent either to the main thread or settings of Eliot, is _Introitus "T.S. Eliot in Memorium_.


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## AlexD (Nov 6, 2011)

The Corsair by Lord Byron inspired a ballet by Marius Pepita which is pretty good. 

Also Byron's play Manfred also inspired Tchaikovski's piece of the same name. The play is written in verse form, but it's not one of Byron's more successful works. 

The Chronos Quartet have a version of Ginsberg's Howl which features one of his (later) readings and orchestration by them. It sounds ok, but to be honest the music seems unnecessary.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Coriglianu's poems of Bob Dylan...


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## AClockworkOrange (May 24, 2012)

If I ask, are there any works based on the poetry of William Blake?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

AClockworkOrange said:


> If I ask, are there any works based on the poetry of William Blake?


A major and most excellent work, highly recommended.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

I enjoy Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, a composition for solo Oboe. I wish there was more music based on Latin literature.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Jobis said:


> Has anyone ever set T.S. Eliot to music, the wasteland for example?


Thomas Ades Five Eliot Landscapes (well worth hearing)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AClockworkOrange said:


> If I ask, are there any works based on the poetry of William Blake?


Britten set some Blake, in the serenade


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

One of my favourite poems is Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold -- because it's true. There's a setting by Samuel Barber

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

AClockworkOrange said:


> If I ask, are there any works based on the poetry of William Blake?


*Dmitri Smirnov*, now based in London, did quite a lot of apparently good miniatures; Blake is a constant inspiration for him. Some can be heard & seen on the composer´s you-t channel, such as "The Tyger" 



 "The Fly" 



 "The Sick Rose" 



 "the Infant Joy" 




(CD http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dmitrismirnov/CDs.html)

There´s also a "Blake Sonata" for Piano 



and "7 Angels of Blake" for piano 



 as well as the "Job`s Studies" for Clarinet 




*Virgil Thompson*: 5 Orchestral Songs (very old recording)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

In my opinion Peter Pears was particularly good at singing poetry. One very fine example is his performance of Britten's setting of Still Falls the Rain by Edith Sitwell.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Shostakovich Symphony No.13 is based on poems; the first movement is the controversial 'Babi Yar' by Yevtushenko.


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## Pantheon (Jun 9, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> One of my favourite poems is Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold -- because it's true. There's a setting by Samuel Barber
> 
> The sea is calm to-night.
> The tide is full, the moon lies fair
> ...


This is one of my favourite poems of all time ! Thank you for this !


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Debussy wrote not one but two settings of this poem "Harmonie du soir" from _Fleurs du mal_ by Baudelaire
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/142

A piano prelude





And a song


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I like Vaughn Williams's "Serenade to Music", originally for 16 vocal soloists and orchestra. The text is an adaptation of a "discussion" from Shakespeare's _The Merchant of Venice_. I don't know if this qualifies as "poetry", but at least some of Shakespeare's plays employed meter and rhymes in the characters' speech.

As stated in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenade_to_Music ,
"Vaughan Williams later arranged the piece into versions for chorus and orchestra and solo violin and orchestra". Frankly I'm not sure why. Maybe because it might be performed more often that way. I'm just guessing. I've only heard the original version.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Ricky Ian Gordon set another of Dickinson's poems: "Will There Really Be a Morning?" The is a wonderful setting.
Andre Previn set the same poem.

Another one of Ricky Ian Gordon's is Langston Hughes' "Joy". Another great setting. 

Both are on youtube.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes comes from George Crabbe's narrative poem found in "The Borough".


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Liszt's warhorse Les préludes was evidently inspired by an Ode from Alphonse de Lamartine's Nouvelles méditations poétiques. Be sure to mention this at your next cocktail party.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Miaskovski's Symphony no. 10 is a single-movement programmatic work based on Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman."


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## Pantheon (Jun 9, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> One of my favourite poems is Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold -- because it's true. There's a setting by Samuel Barber
> 
> The sea is calm to-night.
> The tide is full, the moon lies fair
> ...


I studied this poem in high school, and after two years or so I am thrilled to see it resurface here! Thank you for that post! I do enjoy Samuel Barber too so I will definitely give it a listen


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)

Benjamin Britten -- Les Illuminations


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

*Schönberg ~ Verklärte Nacht*. Inspired by Richard Dehmel's poem. Full text here.

*Mahler ~ Das Lied von der Erde*. Text based on Chinese poems.

*Martinů ~ Nipponari*. Seven songs based on Japanese poetry.

* Martinů ~ Magic Nights*. Three songs based on Chinese poetry.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Bernstein- Symphony 2 "The age of anxiety" (W. H. Auden)

Revueltas- Sensemayá (Nicolás Guillén)


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Now, I seem to remember that there was some nice ditty worked around an ode by Schiller...


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Debussy set the French translation (by Gabriel Sarrazin) of D G Rossetti's The Blessed Damsel for 2 sopranos, female choir and orchestra. Beautiful piece.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Parsifal based on the epic poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Pierre Boulez, Le marteau sans maître and Le visage nuptiel, both works from poems by René Char.


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## Proms Fanatic (Nov 23, 2014)

I've just been listening to Mahler's 'Das Lieber von der erde". This beautiful work features Chinese drinking songs and exquisite Chinese poetry about nature.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

What about one of my all time favs... ANNA CLYNE using bits of poetry references to spice up her works 






Then some real poetic reading in this track here:


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Walt Whitman was a favourite of many composers, not just Vaughan Williams but also Delius, Hindemith, Holst and John Adams. One British composer who set a very diverse range of poetic works was Granville Bantock ... _Sappho, Prometheus Unbound, The Song of Songs_ and his biggest project, a setting of _Omar Khayyam_.


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