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Poems set to music
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,M Date: 24 Feb 16 - 03:55 AM OOPS - finger trouble. Sorry about the blank post. I love Phil Beer singing Johnny Coppin's setting of Frank Mansell's "The Holy Brook". (e.g. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,henryp Date: 23 Feb 16 - 06:45 AM To mark the centenary of the publication of Housman's A Shropshire Lad, Polly Bolton, John Shepherd and Steve Dunachie released Loveliest of Trees, a collection of verses set to music with some verses read by Sir Nigel Hawthorne. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Jack Campin Date: 22 Feb 16 - 07:57 AM Isn't Anglo-American culture an anomaly in how detached poetic and musical creation are from each other? Marcel Khalife sings Mahmoud Darwish's Ommi In this respect Arabic culture is more "normal" in global terms than ours. You could find comparable settings of contemporary poets in French, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, Urdu, Bengali... but if it happens in English it's something to be remarked on. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Jim Carroll Date: 22 Feb 16 - 04:40 AM The Scots drinking song 'A Wee Drappie O't' is, erroneously ascribed to Scots poet, Robert Tannahill. I've recently had to annotate if for something I'm doing - here is what I've found out. "There is no evidence that this was written by Tannahill, but in our copy of Robert Ford's 'Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland' (vol. 1), (Alexander Gardner 1899), Ford's note to it reads: ......."Not less successful is the present contribution to the social programme, by an unknown hand, which happily is better described as a temperance than as a bacchanalian song. It is sung to the air of another good song, of the same class – 'Sae Will We Yet'." A handwritten annotation beneath this note by the former owner of our set of Ford, William Walker, reads, "By the same author", thus attributing this song to Walter Watson (1780 – 1854). William Walker was an authority on the Scots ballads, a correspondent with Francis James Child on the Peter Buchan controversy and almost certainly would have been familiar with the provenance of this song. Ewan's error in attributing this song to Tannahill, probably picked up from his father, from whom he learned it,seems to have become accepted throughout the revival." Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Musket Date: 22 Feb 16 - 03:30 AM I suppose I was rather suspect of poetry put to music for many years after my O Level Music study pieces included Malcolm Williamson's awful scoring of R L Stevenson's "From a Child's Garden." Funnily enough, Bellamy's Kipling dragged me back to leaving my position that poetry is written to be read. Also, a good friend who started at our local folk club the same time as me when we were teenagers, the late Keith Emmerson, picked on a few poems from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I still play his arrangement of The Song of the Ents to this day. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,folkedup Date: 22 Feb 16 - 03:07 AM This is my thing, too. My latest is a mash-up of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Goodbye" (1846) with "The Wayfaring Stranger" (Roud 3339). I rewrote two lines of the poem and borrowed two lines from the folk song lyric to use for a refrain. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Tattie Bogle Date: 06 Feb 16 - 06:09 PM Thanks Peter Laban. Re Crossing the Bar, Zeph: I first heard the beautiful version by Craig, Morgan and Robson. It was played at my Dad's funeral in 2011: I loved the nautical imagery, which fitted with my Dad having been in the Royal Navy. Heard another trio of ladies singing it - all souped up with a funky beat: just wondered if they had any remote idea what it was about!? Nearly had to leave the room! |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST Date: 06 Feb 16 - 04:54 PM Johnny Coppin has set many poems to music. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Zeph Date: 06 Feb 16 - 11:35 AM Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" seems to be sung by lots of choirs these days, must suit choral and harmony singing, but there are also some solo versions notably Salamander Crossing, or individuals from that band, not sure of the name(s). Some might find it depressing, but it's about facing death, rather than death itself. So maybe not so depressing... |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: keberoxu Date: 05 Feb 16 - 02:13 PM And with the previous post, this thread comes full circle. Did not Peter Bellamy approach Rudyard Kipling's ballads precisely because he made the connection between the poetry and several pre-existing tunes, and fit the two together? Didn't Bellamy say that only after matching poems to traditional melodies a few times, did he himself dare to take a Kipling lyric and compose an original setting? |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Peter Laban Date: 05 Feb 16 - 05:02 AM There's no doubt about that. The recording of Cavanagh singing the song was on an RTE documentary about him some years ago. I believe they made the point he already wrote the poem with the tune in mind before Luke Kelly entered into it. It doesn't matter really. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Tattie Bogle Date: 05 Feb 16 - 04:50 AM Think I was aware of this, but there's also the story of Kavanagh saying to Kelly, "I'm giving this to you". As you say, some uncertainty over exactly what happened, but Kelly did a grand job of singing it. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Peter Laban Date: 04 Feb 16 - 07:17 AM But he did a grand job of putting the two together. The point had probably been discussed and argued at length in the past but there IS a recording of Kavanagh singing the song to the tune of 'The Dawning of the day' from well before LK's time with the song. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Tattie Bogle Date: 04 Feb 16 - 06:08 AM .luke Kelly didn't write the tune but used or adapted from an Irish traditional tune, known to be at least 100 years older, Fainne Geal an Lae. But he did a grand job of putting the two together. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Desi C Date: 03 Feb 16 - 07:05 AM I think at least equal to that is the Late Luke Kelly's achievement in seetting Patrick Kavanagh's poem The Dawning Of The Day to music renaming it Raglan Road |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: FreddyHeadey Date: 03 Feb 16 - 06:24 AM If anyone was looking for more poems to put a tune to this might be a list to peruse. Songs Of Darkness It says "Most of these are poems, and most have a theme of darkness; those that are not I just happen to like...." |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Gutcher Date: 02 Feb 16 - 06:28 PM T.B. The last Gordon of Gight, Aberdeenshire, was the mother of Byron. If I am not mistaken he was born there, he certainly attended the school in Aberdeen, Thomas The Rymer made a prophecy about the 11th.C.? bridge over the river Don:----"Brig O Balgownie, black be yer faa, a weedows yae son on a horses yae foal." Young Byron at the age of 12, being his mothers only child aquired a horse and rode over the brig----it still stands!. [he blamed the horse] He also composed a version of the well known song "We'll gang nae mair a roving" as a poem. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Alan Day Date: 02 Feb 16 - 06:25 PM There has been no mention on this thread about the Musical Monologues written approximately 1900.During a Morris tour I was handed a large number of these by someone in the audience.Jim Farr (Jim the Poet) and I performed a number of this collection which included "Waifs Paradise" originally written to raise money to send children from the major cities out to the countryside.Many of the Monologues are too morbid to be of interest being late Victorian.Some however are quite amusing "The Old Castle being extremely clever. Al |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: keberoxu Date: 02 Feb 16 - 03:00 PM Charles Wood was a composer who trained under Stanford, who has been mentioned above. Wood's output is not prolific but he achieved some distinction in different genres, like sacred vocal music. The peerless Lieder accompanist Gerald Moore, in one of his several books, singled out a Charles Wood setting of Ethiopia Saluting the Colors, by Walt Whitman. The poem is highly dramatic, with Sherman's March underway by the Union forces. The incident described is where there were slaves; and "Ethiopia" is represented by a woman wearing a turban of red, yellow, and green, who makes a point of coming outdoors, even though she is ancient and frail, to see the liberating forces march by: she describes how she was abducted from Africa by slavers as a small child. I don't know if the composer Wood set any other Whitman poems. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Jack Campin Date: 29 Jan 16 - 06:52 PM Using texts from literary sources is much commoner in Turkish folk scene than it is in the British one. Here's one much-set poet: Sabahattin Ali (The prison in Sinop where he wrote some of his best known poems is now a museum; I don't know of another prison museum in Turkey and its existence is obviously only just tolerated). A compilation of settings of his poems as performed by people right across the Turkish music scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgcvPzrg0I8 Some of those, like Livaneli's "Leylim Ley", have become downright anthemic. There are similar collections on the web of settings of other 20th century Turkish poets, like Orhan Veli and Nazim Hikmet. And there are far more settings of the 17th-century rebel mystic poet Pir Sultan Abdal, probably too many to collect. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: JHW Date: 29 Jan 16 - 05:04 PM First Sight - Philip Larkin Ghosts - Robert W. Service Lord Ullin's Daughter - Thomas Campbell Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost I am the Great Sun - Charles Causley All these I plead guilty to. Roger McGought asked after set poems a year maybe ago. I sent a couple in but heard no more than the acknowledgement. some recorded |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Airymouse Date: 29 Jan 16 - 01:03 PM I like John Shaw's setting to "To Althea from Prison." It's on his "Regional Curiosity" CD. (The regional curiosity is the dulcimer.) |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Hagman Date: 28 Jan 16 - 07:14 PM Joan Baez's "Baptism" album (1968) has JB singing/reciting the following: "Old Welsh Song" (Henry Treece) "I Saw the Vision of Armies" (Walt Whitman) "Minister of War" (Arthur Waley) "Song In the Blood" (Lawrence Ferlinghetti/Jacques Prévert) "Casida of the Lament" (J.L. Gili/Federico García Lorca) "Of the Dark Past" (James Joyce) "London" (William Blake) "In Guernica" (Norman Rosten) "Who Murdered the Minutes" (Henry Treece) "Oh, Little Child" (Henry Treece) "No Man Is an Island" (John Donne) "Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man" (James Joyce) "All the Pretty Little Horses" (traditional) "Childhood III" (Arthur Rimbaud/Louis Varese) "The Magic Wood" (Henry Treece) "Poems from the Japanese" (Kenneth Rexroth) "Colours" (P. Levi, R. Milner-Gulland, Yevgeny Yevtushenko) "All in green went my love riding" (E. E. Cummings) "Gacela of the Dark Death" (Federico García Lorca/Stephen Spender) "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" (Wilfred Owen) "Evil" (N. Cameron/Arthur Rimbaud) "Epitaph for a Poet" (Countee Cullen) "Mystic Numbers- 36" "When The Shy Star Goes Forth In Heaven" (James Joyce) "The Angel" (William Blake) "Old Welsh Song" (Henry Treece) Orchestrations were by Peter Schickele (a.k.a. P.D.Q. Bach...) |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Tattie Bogle Date: 27 Jan 16 - 07:27 PM A CD came out in 2009 featuring poems of Robert Louis Stevenson, set to music by various Scottish songwriters: it is entitled "From a Garden of Songs". Very nice album. Picking up on a post higher up in the thread about Lochnagar, mentioning Irish connections: Lochnagar is one of the biggest mountains in the Grampians (Scotland) and Byron did spend some time in Scotland, and, I believe, have some Scots in his family. Dark Lochnagar is a challenging song to sing because of its big range. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Genie Date: 27 Jan 16 - 06:06 PM Rani Arbo set Tennyson's poem Crossing The Bar to a lovely melody, rearranging the order of the verses (1, 3, 2, 4) and adding a refrain for each verse by repeating phrases from that verse. Rose & Colin duet Crossing The Bar Getaway 2010 Ensemble at Getaway sings Crossing The Bar for Rose |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Jack Campin Date: 27 Jan 16 - 11:21 AM How about Jacques Prevert? https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/french-poet-jacques-prevert-translated-into-english/ Brecht, Lorca, Hikmet... there are quite a few poets in languages beyond English who have been set to music in many cultures besides their own. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Will Fly Date: 27 Jan 16 - 04:33 AM There's a Scottish composer and performance artist, who's lived in Brighton for many years, called Billy Cowie, and a major part of his work has been composing music for poets' work from many countries. I first heard of him when we were both on the staff of the University of Brighton (I believe he still is) and bought one of his records called "La Chanson Bien Douce", which consists of several poems of Verlaine set to music. The music is set for 2 sopranos, piano, violin and cello and I think it's very beautiful. If you go to http://www.billycowie.com/, you can read all about him. Click on the "CDs" link in the menu bar and scroll down to CD DIVAS 5 for info. There's a video there illustrating one of the poems - "La Chanson Bien Douce". Worth a listen. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Peter Laban Date: 27 Jan 16 - 03:37 AM A large part of Seán Tyrrell's output consists of poems set to music, including Paul Durcan's 'Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin'. When I was a boy, myself and my girl Used bicycle up to the Phoenix Park; Outside the gates we used lie in the grass Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin. Often I wondered what de Valera would have thought Inside in his ivory tower If he knew that we were in his green, green grass Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin. Because the odd thing was – oh how odd it was – We both revered Irish patriots And we dreamed our dreams of a green, green flag Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin. But even had our names been Diarmaid and Gráinne We doubted de Valera's approval For a poet's son and a judge's daughter Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin. I see him now in the heat-haze of the day Blindly stalking us down; And, levelling an ancient rifle, he says, "Stop Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin" |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,mg Date: 27 Jan 16 - 03:23 AM i just put cassandra..should be provided, her daughter..southwick by jjohn greenleaf whittier to the tune of lowlands of holland, after just using the last verses. also wrote a tune to helen all alone by kipling. put gift of the sea, cut down, to mary of the wild moor. gethsemane to auld lang syne..obviously we'll duck and we'll dive likelittle tin turtles goes to we'll rant and we'll roar..in lowestoft a boat was laid..i'll go no more a roving. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Hagman Date: 26 Jan 16 - 08:14 PM Richard Buckner's "The Hill" CD is an adaptation of Edgar Lee Master's "Spoon River Anthology" |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 26 Jan 16 - 07:23 PM Francis Scott Key's "Defence of Fort McHenry" set to "The Anacreontic Song" is the "Star Spangled Banner." Haitian poet Oswald Durand's "Choucoune" was set to a mash-up of carnival music by American ex-pat Mauleart Monton. Marcy: "Music behind spoken poetry can be really effective….amazing to hear how the music brought the words to life." BUCKSHOT LEFONQUE I Know Why The Caged bird Sings (volume warning) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vnt7TBovKs |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,DrWord Date: 26 Jan 16 - 05:01 PM Blake? Absolutely! Alas, my ongoing struggle to do musical and lyrical justice to 'The tyger' will not likely be performed, let alone recorded. I do keep trying, though. A million years ago I made a melody for Scott's 'Proud Maisie' which I still like. Thanks for the thread, mudfolk, and keep on pickin' dennis |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Amergin Date: 26 Jan 16 - 04:58 PM Phil Ochs also covered Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells. Sarah Jarosz did Annabelle Lee. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Ottery Date: 26 Jan 16 - 03:44 PM Maddy Prior sang a version of "The Rolling English Road" (Chesterton) that I love very much. I think Jim Causley has sung settings of the poems of his relative Charles Causley. Haven't heard them yet, but keep meaning to check them out. I loved some of CC's stuff when I was a child. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: MGM·Lion Date: 26 Jan 16 - 02:20 PM Well, well; 3 collections. Why, one learns something new every day, even at my age [84 this year]! |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: MGM·Lion Date: 26 Jan 16 - 02:17 PM Thank you. Read all of Holmes + the historical novels at 8 or 9, when one should; but must admit had never thought of him as a poet. Will google to see what othe3r bardic effusions of his I can find. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: keberoxu Date: 26 Jan 16 - 01:57 PM MGM, I went to www.lieder.net, which posts song lyrics in all languages, to see if there was a single lyric there by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with a musical setting. There is: one. The composer is Gary Bachlund of whom I am ignorant. And here is the poem. A PARABLE from Songs of Action) The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there, And warmly debated the matter; The Orthodox said that it came from the air, And the heretics said from the platter; They argued it long and they argued it strong, And I hear they are arguing now; But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese, Not one of them thought of a cow. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: MGM·Lion Date: 26 Jan 16 - 01:25 PM Dave the Gnome -- Going right back 6 years or so to your OP: what works of Conan Doyle did your friend Ged find suitable for musical setting? I can't offhand think of any of his œuvre which would lend itself. ≈M≈ |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: keberoxu Date: 26 Jan 16 - 01:16 PM William Blake? Walt Whitman? |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel Date: 26 Jan 16 - 11:44 AM Roger Wilson used Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" as part of his song "Indian Tea". Martin Carthy has also had a go at e.e. cummings' "all in green", adapting the minuet from Mozart's "Hunt Quartet". C.F. Smith has already been mentioned, but I'll mention her again just to remember the late Sarah Morgan and her stunning setting "Home Lads Home". |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Marcy Date: 26 Jan 16 - 08:17 AM Music behind spoken poetry can be really effective. I was in a play called Twisted Roots about a year ago where poetry by Peggy Douglas was spoken while a small string band played. It was really amazing to hear how the music brought the words to life. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: MGM·Lion Date: 26 Jan 16 - 07:32 AM A bit of a mystery is why the online youtube recording of Betjeman reading the poem has him do it in what sounds more like a sort of cod "North Coon-tree", than either anything like Shropshire or like his native London sort of old-fashioned RP in which he recites, eg, his autobiographical Summoned By Bells. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: MGM·Lion Date: 26 Jan 16 - 07:18 AM "John Betjeman's poem "A Shropshire Lad" (1940) commemorates the death of Captain Webb, portraying his ghost swimming back along the canal to Dawley [his Shropshire birthplace - M]. It was set to music by Jim Parker and has been the most requested song on the repertoire of John Kirkpatrick during his entire career." Wikipedia entry on Captain Webb |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: MGM·Lion Date: 26 Jan 16 - 07:12 AM Housman's A Shropshire Lad was an 1896 collection of charming, if often rather pessimistic, bucolic verses by a Cambridge don who had probably never even visited Shropshire. Betjeman also wrote an individual poem called A Shropshire Lad, in retrospective honour of Captain Webb, the first Channel swimmer of early C20, obviously intending the title to have referential classic resonances back to the Housman book; the gallant Captain being, obviously, a native of Shropshire. ≈M≈ |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST Date: 26 Jan 16 - 07:03 AM A Shropshire Lad was A E Housman, not Betjamin. George Butterworth's setting is sublime. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,John from "Elsie`s Band" Date: 26 Jan 16 - 06:54 AM "Depot Races" by W.Miller, published in "The Barry Humphries Book of Innocent Austral Verse" |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,silver Date: 26 Jan 16 - 06:05 AM "The Fiddler of Dooney" was set to music by Jo-Ellen Bosson. On a visit to Ireland, I mentioned this to an Irishman, and he seemed shocked at the thought of anyone tampering with Yeats's poems. Never had the opportunity to play the song to him. It's on "Return to the Land" by Gordon Bok, 1990. Bok himself has set many poems to music, for example: "The Sea Wife" and "Harp Song of the Dane Women" by R Kipling "The Death Ship" by B Traven "Sailor's Carol" by C Causley "The Liza Jane" by J B Connolly (uncertain, he says he had found it in a book by said author) "Sally" by J Goodenough "Little River" by R Moore "Peace on Earth" by W C Williams From my own country, the poems of G Fröding, E A Karlfeldt, and Dan Andersson have been set to music by many different composers. |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: GUEST,LynnH Date: 26 Jan 16 - 03:24 AM Henry Lawson's "Past carin'" was set to music by Steve Ashley and recorded by Mara! |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: Hagman Date: 26 Jan 16 - 02:08 AM Artful Dodger mentioned Robert W. Service on this list years ago - Country Joe McDonald's album "War War War" is all RWS poetry, and is sensational. For you Poms, you can't go past your Eddie Elgar's "Sea Pictures" (The Janet Baker version, of course) and you will note that one of the texts is by an Aussie - Adam Lindsay Gordon.... Happy Australia Day, all! |
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Subject: RE: Poems set to music From: eftifino Date: 25 Jan 16 - 10:45 PM More recently, the late Jim Croce recorded 'Gunga Din"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Vxqydpmus Banjo Patterson's "Clancy of the Overflow": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB6K85PuQ_M |
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