# Poems and music



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

Thinking of an idea for a future blog posting.

Suggestions of works either puting poems to music or inspired by poems.

I'm sure there are TONS of them, so I expect lots of ideas from you TC-ers.

No language is off limits - except for that crazy language from Lord of the Ringsd (No offence)


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

My favourite inspired-by-poem works would be Dvorak's late symphonic poems, based on the poetry of fellow Czech Karel Erben, and, naturally, Tchaikovsky's Manfred symphony, based on the closet drama by Byron.

It seems as well that no conversation like this could go without mentioning Faust - there have been so many adaptations!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

This is a HUGE subject. Here are a few that pop into my head. 

Frederick Shepherd Converse based The Mysic Trumpeter and Endymion's Narrative on the respective poems by Whitman and Keats.

John Corigliano set three poems in his Dylan Thomas Trilogy and tried again, I think unsuccessfully, with Mr. Tambourine Man, using seven Bob Dylan poems. 

Then there's William Bolcom's ambitous setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. 

Stravinsky set a portion of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets in his Dove Descending.

John Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia has been set by Handel and Purcell and probably others. 

And there's the ubiquitous Carmina Burana, thanks to Carl Orff. 

Anton Webern found his way through atonal/12-tone writing with poems by Hildegarde Jone (exclaiming, "Extraordinary how the words met me half way.")

Gustav Mahler drew a lot of inspiration from Das Kanben Wunderhorn.


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## Trout (Apr 11, 2011)

The Bells by Sergei Rachmaninoff


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

The Sorceror's Apprentice by Dukas/Goethe.

All I can think of at the moment.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Lark Ascending (Vaughan Williams)


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Szymanowski's 1st violin concerto is supposed to be related to poem by Tadeusz Miciński, english fragment of which I've found at wikipedia: 

All the birds pay tribute to me
for today I wed a goddess.
And now we stand by the lake in crimson blossom
in flowing tears of joy, with rapture and fear,
burning in amorous conflagration.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I think Albinano's Adagio in g minor married beautifully to the words of Jim Morrison


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

+ Tchaikovsky's _Francesca da Rimini_ (from Dante's _Divine Comedy_), and therefore Liszt's dire Dante Symphony


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

My blog post:
http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/237-poems-music.html

Thanks for all your suggestions!


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

The final movement of Henze's second piano concerto is a big and successful setting (for piano and orchestra) of Shakespeare sonnet 129 (_The expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action..._)
(And the first movement is a somewhat unlikely (for Henze) palindrome running some 20 minutes)


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