[Maryann Corbett]

This morning, through a link on another board, I stumbled on a music video of Loreena McKennitt's setting of Yeats's "The Stolen Child." The music video is here.

The poem is here.

It dissolved the last forty years and made me think about my hopelessly romantic teenage self and some of the sung settings and performances of poems that I like a lot:


More McKennitt: Alfred Noyes's "The Highwayman"

Judy Collins: Yeats's The Song of Wandering Aengus

Custer Larue: William Dunbar's On the Nativity of Christ

John Shirley-Quirk: Ralph Vaughn Williams's "Five Mystical Songs," which sets five poems of George Herbert.

It's likely others here have favorite musical settings of poems and reasons for loving them, so here's an invitation to share them, with links to performance, or text, or both.

[grasshopper]

I know that, among music critics, it's thought a failed attempt, but I've always loved Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Sea Symphony' which sets Whitman's words to music.
I don't know, to be frank, what I'd think of the words without the music, but when I hear:

"O we can wait no longer,
We too take ship O soul,
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,)
Caroling free, singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration."
--
it just lifts my heart every time.

Regards, Maz

[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks, Maz; that's a piece I didn't know at all. That's the goal of starting a thread like this: to know more great stuff.

Maryann

[R E Bolick]

No endorsement but to keep the list going:

Some of Elizabeth Bishop's poetry has been set to music in Three Ages of Woman: For High Voice and Piano, by Lee Hoiby, Southern Music, 1994, and Invitation to Music: For Mixed Chorus and Piano, by Libby Larsen, Oxford University Press, 1998.

[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks for these, Bob. I can't resist the opportunity to plug local composer Libby Larson.

I'm also recalling that poet Michael Dennis Browne and composer Stephen Paulus have been collaborating for a long time. Browne isn't known for much metrical work, but some of the Christmas pieces by these two are in rhyme and meter.(Not masterworks yet, I guess, but hey, let's expand the topic.)

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

In case I'm not the only one who didn't know that Richard Wilbur's "A Christmas Hymn" has been set to music, I'll mention that one. I see that there are several versions that you can purchase on line. Can anyone recommend a version or recording?

I was bowled over by his reading of this on Saturday -- which he did as a special request from someone in the audience, and I would love to know what it sounds like set to music. I'm not a religious person (even remotely), and yet this poem was incredibly moving (not to mention the way Mr. Wilbur read it). I'd love to know more.

Marybeth

[B.J. Preston]

One disk I listen to quite often is “Beloved That Pilgrimage”, which features baritone Sanford Sylvan singing Barber’s “Hermit Songs” (including a wonderful version of “The Monk and His Cat”... the Auden translation). I found a free link as follows:

<A HREF="http://www.rhapsody.com/sanfordsylvan/belovedthatpilgrimage?tstart=0" TARGET=_blank>http://www.rhapsody.com/sanfordsylvan/belovedthatpilgrimage?tstart=0
</A>

(though you have to sign up at the site apparently).

Also on the disk are “Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson” (Copland) and also “Eight Epitaphs”. It’s a gud ‘un to chop vegetables along to... or whatever.




[This message has been edited by B.J. Preston (edited October 15, 2007).]

[Maryann Corbett]

Marybeth, the settings I know of the Wilbur poem are titled "A Stable Lamp Is Lighted." One is composed by Michael Joncas, and I believe he has at least one recording out that includes that piece (he's produced several recordings, but I'm not sure which are still in print). I've got it somewhere, but on vinyl. The other composer is Hurd, I think.

BJ, thanks for that link and disk name, and a new baritone for me!

On the cusp of the canon, I suppose we could include the Childe ballads, and then we'd be venturing into the realm of folk music. Think Stan Rogers and "The Witch of the Westmoreland"....

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Thanks, Maryann. I'm definitely going to look those up.

Marybeth

[Maryann Corbett]

By sheer accident I found this one via Choriamb this morning: Dante set to music, as written up in the Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../wdante116.xml