Classic Poetry Set to Music??

Subject: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 May 09 - 10:55 AM

A couple of wonderful Yeats poems set to music by two rather well known artistes here:

The Song of Wandering Aengus

The Stolen Child

Though I vastly prefer The Waterboy's Stolen Child to McKennit's as in particular I don't like the way she (doesn't) scan, but I can't learn to sing The Waterboy's version..

Any more??
Not just by Yeat's, but those are the only three I know of off the top of my head.

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 02 May 09 - 12:41 PM

John Betjeman





Indoor Games near Newbury

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 02 May 09 - 12:43 PM

Richard Lovelace's 'To Althea From prison' by Fairport Convention (with Dave Swarbrick singing.)

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 02 May 09 - 12:51 PM

Check out The Wraiths - a band local to me who put Emily Dickenson's (and other poets') poetry to music: The Wraiths Myspace

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Shalini
Date: 02 May 09 - 01:21 PM

Loreena McKennitt also does 'The Lady of Shalott'. 'Down by the Salley Gardens' and 'The Two Trees' are also Yeats.

Have you heard the several versions of Aengus? I know Karan Casey, Judy Collins and many others (I don't remember them) have done it.

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Shalini
Date: 02 May 09 - 01:28 PM

Also Poe's Annabelle Lee. I can't remember who I've heard singing it.

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Shalini
Date: 02 May 09 - 01:31 PM

Look at this thread and this .

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 May 09 - 01:47 PM

Many thanks for the suggestions, and those thread links - like a banana I forgot to do a search!

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 02 May 09 - 02:02 PM

And no, I had no idea that several singers have set Aengus to music. In fact I only stumbled on the Donovan the other day.
Frankly my folk musical knowledge is rather sparse as yet. Though Mudcat is helping me to slowly make amends!

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: GUEST,murray on saltspring
Date: 02 May 09 - 03:29 PM

William Blake - can't remember who's done it, but try "Ah sunflower! weary of time".

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 May 09 - 04:51 PM

There have been art-music settings of Blake by Britten (and presumably lots of other people), I can't think of one from the folk world.

But Parry's setting of "Jerusalem" certainly has made the crossover into oral tradition.

Byron's "We'll Go No More A-Roving" has been pretty popular over the years. (I just looked for versions on YouTube - there's an appalling one by Leonard Cohen with tasteless backing vocals and a better, but too melodramatic, one by Joan Baez).

It's entirely normal in the Turkish folk scene for texts to be taken from high-art poetry (as far back as Yunus Emre in the 13th century). This would seem a rather odd question there.

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 02 May 09 - 07:27 PM

Ed Miller used to sing WH Auden's "As I Walked out one Evening", and I've got a tune to Hugh MacDiarmid's "Oh Wha's the Bride" from "A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle".

Joan Baez amongst others used to sing Byron's "So We'll Go No MOre a-Roving".

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 May 09 - 08:08 PM

Sir Thomas Moore

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: GUEST,murrbob
Date: 02 May 09 - 10:18 PM

Several good renditions of "The Highwayman." Danny Doyle performs it as does, I believe, Loreena McKinnett.

    Also, Lord Byron's "Caledonia" sung by many performers.

Subject: RE: Classic Poetry Set to Music??
From: Shalini
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:19 PM

Donovan also sings 'The Owl and the Pussycat" :)