[Julie Steiner]

It's a different art form from poetry itself. But even if I don't like an arrangement, I usually find the interpretation interesting.

Share them in this thread. Apologies in advance to those who won't be able to see these in their countries.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"To See the Sky"
Choral arrangement by Jocelyn Hagen
Text from "Leaves" by Sara Teasdale:

One by one, like leaves from a tree,
All my faiths have forsaken me;
But the stars above my head
Burn in white and delicate red,
And beneath my feet the earth
Brings the sturdy grass to birth.
I who was content to be
But a silken-singing tree,
But a rustle of delight
In the wistful heart of night,
I have lost the leaves that knew
Touch of rain and weight of dew.
Blinded by a leafy crown
I looked neither up nor down—
But the little leaves that die
Have left me room to see the sky;
Now for the first time I know
Stars above and earth below.

[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks for this, Julie. I could go on and on about setting poems for singing (and I did, in the next-to-last issue of Measure). I'll put a few favorites in this thread, though it may take me a while to find them and edit them in.

For starters, Randall Thompson's setting of Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star"

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud—
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

[Mark McDonnell]

https://youtu.be/OKxQh5LLKPA

A Poison Tree

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

[Maryann Corbett]

And also: Eriks Esenvalds' setting of Sara Teasdale's "Only in Sleep."


Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten —
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild —
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?

[Maryann Corbett]

And furthermore: Morton Lauridsen's setting of James Agee's "Sure On This Shining Night"

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand'ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.

[Ann Drysdale]

I love this very much. Janet Baker sings this setting, by Ivor Gurney, of a poem by Joseph Campbell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h506SNOLo0o

Does it make a difference that the composer is a poet, too? Or that the singer's diction is so perfect that I hardly need add the poem. But I will...

I will go with my father a-ploughing
To the green field by the sea,
And the rooks and the crows and the seagulls
Will come flocking after me.
I will sing to the patient horses
With the lark in the white of the air,
And my father will sing the plough song
That blesses the cleaving share.

I will go with my father a-sowing
To the red field by the sea,
And the rooks and the gulls and the starlings
Will come flocking after me.
I will sing to the striding sowers
With the finch on the greening sloe,
And my father will sing the seed song
That only the wise men know.

I will go with my father a-reaping
To the brown field by the sea,
And the geese and the crows and the children
Will come flocking after me.
I will sing to the tan-faced reapers
With the wren in the heat of the sun,
And my father will sing the scythe song
That joys for the harvest done.

[Ann Drysdale]

Same poem, same setting, but a different singer (Ian Bostridge, tenor) and this time you can see the music...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h506SNOLo0o

[Clive Watkins]

There are, of course, numerous fine devotional poems that have had a double life as Christian hymns. Some started as poems and were later set to music; in some the words were composed in parallel, as it were, with the melody. Three favourites from boyhood are George Herbert’s “The Elixir”, Joseph Addison’s “The Spacious Firmament on High” and Christina Rosetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter”. This last has two lovely settings, one by Gustav Holst, one by Harold Darke. Then there is the wonderful Coventry Carol. The list could go on. But perhaps this kind of thing is outside the intended scope of this thread.

Clive Watkins

[Martin Elster]

The Road Not Taken

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahjYPkA1QYc

[Quincy Lehr]

Not Waving But Drowning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p994EMYQpPE