Abstract

This work explores the many aesthetic and theoretical issues that arise when poems are set to music. Is a setting a hybrid form, a support for the text, or simply a piece of music? All such inquiry is an effort to define, and then either integrate or resolve the tension that is the driving force of the musical setting. This book explores the differing aesthetic theories and tests them against the practice of modern composers. Topics explored include: speech rhythms in music; Ezra Pound and music; Shakespeare's Sonnets; Recitations with music - Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Baraka; Stravinsky - Shakespeare Songs, In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, Symphony of Psalms; The Tyger, settings by Britten and Thomson; and Emily Dickinson/Aaron Copland.