# Composers and Poets



## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Like with any two arts, poetry and music have artists that have a lot of the same "personalities" or ways of thinking. Considering I'm interested most in poetry and music, I've seen some fun, although not to be taken seriously, parallels. Hope you have some fun ones too


Beethoven - Goethe: Both Weimar Classicist, in between the Romantic and Classical while also having a unique period of their own

Shelley - Mozart: Died Early, both subtle but rewarding, both can seem superficial on the surface, called bad artists but people who know nothing about art

Bach - Shakespeare - Flair for the dramatic and the learned, "Coleridge famously observed that Shakespeare's greatness doesn't manifest itself in particular, heightened moments; it suffuses his writing, rather, as a kind of "general excitement." While this observation doesn't do justice to Shakespeare's many unforgettable lines, one understands what Coleridge was getting at. Something similar can be said of Bach. His distinction lies less in isolable heights than in a pervasive greatness, a quality rarely obtrusive yet everywhere"

Eliot - Stravinsky: Both rejected the Romantics, both pinnacles of modernism, very religious in their later lives, both are ignored for the work they did in their later lives but have some very famous early works (Love Song and Wasteland for Eliot, Rite of Spring and Firebird for Stravinsky), both had classicist attitudes towards their respective art.

Byron - Wagner: Hearthrob, Intensely passionate to the point of nihilism, gigantic personality and art, 

Wordsworth - Brahms: Don't have much for this one, but both of seemed to be a part of the old and the new. 

Focused too much on English poets, but do you guys have any?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Whitman - Ives: Democratic values through and through, both tried to find an expressly American art, by integrating popular elements into the "learned".

Basho - Takemitsu: I thought perhaps about including Webern instead, but Takemitsu's evocations of nature, of place make him the clear choice. Either way, an economy of language with an indirect form of expression characterize all of the above choices.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Basho - Takemitsu: I thought perhaps about including Webern instead


For Webern, maybe Ezra Pound would suffice? He held a lot of Basho's ideas, was very influenced by his brevity and clarity, but still maintained the Western perspective of art of the mind rather than of nature, ego rather than ego-less.

I agree wholeheartedly with Whitman - Ives, I can't think of a better parallel. They practically are the same people in different arts.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Allen Ginsberg - John Cage: that hippy, anarchist anti establishment type element. Both Americans, and contemporaries.

Jean Cocteau - the Les Six composers (Milhaud, Poulenc, Auric, etc) : obvious of being French & contemporaries, also that element of absurdity and fantasy and basically anti-profundity following the catastrophe that was World War I. The roaring twenties as well.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - Gershwin. More a story/novel writer but I think Fitzgerald did write poetry too? Anyway, in making this comparison I'm indeed thinking of the roaring 20's in America. His _Tales of the Jazz Age_, a collection of short stories, comes to mind.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Pushkin - Tchaikovsky: An obvious one. Tchaikovsky wrote many compositions using Pushkin's writing, books and poems alike, as did many other Russians. Also, they are alike in their powerful emotional expression, a mixture of ecstasy and despair.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Schubert - Keats: Both died early, and have a naturalism to them. I'm for sure that Keats didn't believe there was an afterlife in his laterlife (it's in his letters), and I don't think Schubert did either; I think the String Quintet is an acceptance of life, an acceptance there is nothing after it. There doesn't seem to be any religious sentiment in it. Wittgenstein described Schubert as "irreligiously melancholic". I agree. I think he looks at nature spiritually but not religiously.


Schoenberg - Rilke: Both are masters of expressionism, and trasitional figures towards Late Romanticism and Modernism. They both also considered themselves still as Late Romantics.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Baudelaire - Scriabin: I suppose that erotic, sensuous, being pushed to the edge, 'hothouse' type atmosphere of both their works correspond? Rimbaud would be a good match too for Scriabin, I think.

Bertolt Brecht - Hanns Eisler: This is cheating, as Brecht collaborated with Eisler as his lyricist. But both emerged in that German interwar period when the aspirations of the Weimar Republic went very sour, both Communists and both in that type of political art aesthetic. (Kurt Weill is less of a fit with Brecht as he was not as far left, a leftist yes but not Commie, not so much a political animal).

Elias Lönnrot - Sibelius: Lonrot, though not technically a poet, compiled the Finnish epic, the Kalevala in the 19th century. My understanding is that it was an oral tradition, and in effect he saved it from possible extinction by recording it. Connections with Sibelius are obvious, as he did a series of four tone poems vividly bringing the Kalevala to life (plus his role as Finland's 'national monument' composer, putting the country on the map musically speaking).

I'm wracking my brain to think of a good Aussie one, but none comes to mind...


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## violinplaya (Mar 13, 2013)

Hmm... I am sixteen and would like to study music and poetry and stuff as hobbies. How do I begin? Or how did you begin?

Awkward moment when everyone else is an intellectual...


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Great comparisons, everyone; also, a great topic, I love comparisons between the arts. Just a few observations:

-Wagner was also a poet of his own, his libretti; Byron could also be paired with Berlioz or Liszt?
-While Goethe and Beethoven share a lot, there were also some differences. There's a story about how they were walking together and met a some prince, Goethe took off his hat and bowed, Beethoven did not and deeply disapproved of Goethe's behavior. I think that in the end, Goethe was the greater intellectual of the two, while Beethoven was always more rebellious and radical, perhaps even more of a genius. Goethe is sometimes identified with "naive" art, that is, non-conceptual, natural and instinctive art, while Beethoven is clearly a man of the "spirit"... although, he does not oppose nature, either. Perhaps it's obvious, but Beethoven could well be paired with Friedrich Schiller! I feel that they share more than the "obvious connection". They share a rebellious ethos that is still ruled by reason.
-I know too little of Hölderlin's poetry but my instinct says that he could be compared to Bruckner!
-Here's one more: Lautreamont and Scriabin! Both were "out there", very intelligent people who perhaps had some difficulties getting their "message" across. They share the symbolist aesthetic and a feeling of isolation from the rest of humanity. Also, there's something macabre in both of them.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

violinplaya said:


> Hmm... I am sixteen and would like to study music and poetry and stuff as hobbies. How do I begin? Or how did you begin?
> 
> Awkward moment when everyone else is an intellectual...


You have plenty of time to familiarize yourself with culture and the arts if you're sixteen. When the adults of today began their own journey, there was no internet; you have that advantage. Use it to your benefit. Read, listen, immerse yourself with the stuff that makes life worth living. Also read and listen to stuffs that make you feel puzzled. All the best things require an aquired taste, one that you have to work on.

Homework assignments:
-read "The Love Song of J. Albert Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot;
-listen to the symphonies of Beethoven.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Baudelaire - Scriabin: I suppose that erotic, sensuous, being pushed to the edge, 'hothouse' type atmosphere of both their works correspond? Rimbaud would be a good match too for Scriabin, I think.


Heh, didn't notice your Scriabin thing there, Sid, excellent pairings! But Lautreamont would also do, not?


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

violinplaya said:


> Hmm... I am sixteen and would like to study music and poetry and stuff as hobbies. How do I begin? Or how did you begin?
> 
> Awkward moment when everyone else is an intellectual...


violinplayer. Don't worry jump in. Not everybody is an intellectual (some don't know how to spell it. That's easy it's I T )
Just enjoy, this is a great forum, you may get some teasing, but it's a good natured place to come too


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

Britten and W R Owen - he used Owen's poems for the War Requiem


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## violinplaya (Mar 13, 2013)

I will thanks. I laughed out loud at your comment. You said hw so naturally. I think this poem is cool "Spanish lessons" by Ted kooser.


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## violinplaya (Mar 13, 2013)

I like the language. Though I have no idea what the hell it means... Sounds like some cool hippie LSD poetry. I like it!
As for beethoven I already have his symphonies on cd. I'll try to hear them all.


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## violinplaya (Mar 13, 2013)

I wonder how did you get into the arts. My parents are scientists. Did you grow up surrounded by these things?


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## MichaelSolo (Mar 12, 2013)

Erich Maria Remark and Schostakovich.

Unity more in style and world view rather then biographical facts.

Ibsen and Bartok (strangely not Grieg). Equally convoluted, philosophical, surprising and of solid folk origin.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

The Sibelius-Lonnrot connection makes sense, but when I hear the words "poet" and "Sibelius," I'd have to admit, Lonnrot does not come to mind. (True, Lonnrot was not a poet per se, though he did compile an awful lot of folk poetry to create the Kalevala.)

The composer-poet combination that does come to mind immediately is Sibelius and J.L. Runeberg, the national poet of Finland and Sibelius's favorite poet. Sibelius set several of Runeberg's poems to song, my favorite of which is The Fist Kiss. Sibelius was also fond of two other Finnish poets, Rydberg and Kivi.


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## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Debussy - Mallarmé, perhaps? 

Poetry isn't really my strong suit (at all), but I think even though there's a for most people more obvious link between Debussy and the impressionist painters, his connection with the symbolist poets was just as important. (The symbolists were again linked to both impressionism and wagnerism) Mallarmé's use of words for the sake of how they sound is maybe somewhat analogous Debussy's 'emancipation of harmony'. He also set some of his poems to music, and 'Afternoon of a Faun' is directly inspired by a Mallarmé poem.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

Also, Schumann's inspiration from Byron, Hoffman, and Jean Paul!


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