Poetry for Composers
- October 19, 2005
- By Michael Kaulkin
- Choral Music, Composing
- 7 comments
My post about Doctor Atomic has got me thinking about this whole business of effectively setting poetry to music. This is something John Adams has always been exceptionally good at, even if I don’t agree with his approach to writing for the stage. But it’s certainly not a given that any good composer would be able to do this well.
Most of my career has focused on writing for the voice, whether it was for art songs, choral pieces or theatrical works, and so being able to analyze a text is something I’ve had to learn (and am still learning). I recently adjudicated a composition competition where many of the submissions were vocal pieces, and it was a big surprise how few of those composers seemed to know, or even care, much about how to handle a text.
Personally, I’ve always been drawn to theater, and that type of text setting comes to me fairly naturally. Of course, it helps that in that type of project, one normally has the ability to help shape the text according to the requirements of musical setting (or write it oneself, which I’ve been doing lately). But in the case of setting poetry, as is usually done with art songs and choral pieces, it’s been more of a struggle.
For starters, the process of choosing texts can be daunting. I’ve only once been given a specific poem to set (e.e. cummings’ “I think you God for most this Amazing”), and it was just pure dumb luck that it happened to be appropriate for musical setting. I’m very picky. For me, in order for a poem to be “settable”, it needs to have very short lines and very few ideas packed into a stanza, which disqualifies most poems. I think a lot of composers fail to recognize that most poetry stands on its own without music, and shouldn’t be monkeyed with. Poetry should be chosen that leaves space for the composer to enhance it through music — perhaps to draw out a hidden meaning. There needs to be room for interpretation.
Here’s an example of a wonderful poem by Emily Dickinson that’s short enough to allow a composer to take his or her time coloring each line. I used this poem in my chorus/orchestra piece Cycle of Friends, and used repetition to stretch the poem into a musical form (think Kyrie Eleison in a Mass).
Listen here:
Are Friends Delight or Pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good –
But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches are sad.
For composers wishing to improve their text analysis skills, a great resource was just published a few months ago. In Break, Blow, Burn Camille Paglia walks you through her own reading of 43 poems from various periods. (I’m still working my way through it.) The point isn’t whether you agree with her readings. If, like me, you haven’t had extensive training in this area, reading her explanations gives you a feel for what to look for when choosing and setting poetry. Unless you’re an English major, you probably need this book, or something like it.
Sidebar
I can’t help mentioning that Dr. Paglia was one of my teachers at the University of the Arts before her first book Sexual Personae
M.Keiser
I think that im a competant judge of poetry and analyzation, but maybe im just full of myself. Im not english major, but i think i can tell bad poetry when i see it (and i do, so often).
Im trying to get poetry to set to music, but am having a hard time of it. I want to write a song of some sort, since i never have. But i also want to use the poetry of my friends or people i know, if i can. As mean as it is to say, i wish my poet friends were better poets.
Nice choral music, by the way.
Michael Kaulkin
M., you’re probably better off avoiding your friends’ poetry if you think it’s not good.
On the other hand, you might try sitting one of your poet friends down and explaining your requirements. Then you might get a good collaboration going.
Heather
e.e.cummings, eh? What do you know regarding copyright and setting his poetry to music? For some reason I thought he was off limits. Even more generally, what do you know of the legal issues on setting poetry to music? We wrestle with this issue all the time in my duo, unsure if we can “steal” anything we want but very sure that our intent is all for the artistic “good.” Hmm.
p.s. do you remember me from sfcm?
Michael Kaulkin
This goes way back into the 20th Century, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember the details of how I got permission. So I looked at my own cover page to see what it said.
Turns out, I’d written a letter to the Liveright Publishing Corporation to get permission, which they cordially supplied by way of a boilerplate letter of agreement (which I hope I have on file somewhere). Also, they provided the exact wording that needed to appear in the score so as to acknowledge their permission.
I don’t remember how I went about finding the copyright owner, but I have a sneaking suspicion the internet played a role.
I’ve never had trouble securing rights to set poetry. I think in most cases, all you have to do is ask. If you use poetry without asking, you might be asking for trouble.
Hucbald
You couldn’t PAY ME ENOUGH to set words to music. Lyrics are mostly just cover for composers who can’t write. Most of the time, anyway. I can’t stand any form of vocal music after Palestrina and Schutz. But then, I’m admittedly very weird. Whatever. I just want to hear music. Music expresses more than words ever could, which IS the point. For me, anyway. Words just get in the way.
Jerry Gerber
Hucbald is apparently suffering from the banalization and degradation of song lyrics due in part to the obsessive need to make lyrics a vehicle for romantic fantasy rather than personal meaning and depth. And yet he is right, it will always be true that music alone can say things that words cannot. In my CD In Praise of Poets, I tried to unite poems of literary depth with musical expression. The problem of “give the people what they want” in terms of lyrics has gotten out of hand, the other side of the equation is to share with people the words of saints, artists, poets, madmen, ethical geniuses and other peacemakers as there must be a contrast.
Peter White
“set poetry to music”: don’t EVER.
By all means set music to poetry: long syllables, long notes; short syllables, short notes. Dead boring I know and it so often seems to gone out post Handel but the way the beautiful English language has been massacred by some later composers means that I avoid listening to any of their classical English settings.