Classic Vocal Music inspired by Poetry

by Andy Sosnowski in Song Reviews

This is the script for a 2 hour radio program I did on Sunday Aug 10 on WJFF 90.5 FM called Classics for Voice.

This show is in the archive for a few days if anyone wants to hear the show in full. Here is the link:

http://www.wjffradio.org/parchive/mp3/080810_220002voice.MP3

Good evening, this is Classics for Voice and I am Andy Sosnowski one of the hosts of this program on WJFF.

We just heard Luciana Souza singing the song Poetry which is based on a poem by the Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda from her CD Neruda. We’ll hear more from her and from him later.

That was to introduce our topic which will be Music inspired by Poetry.

Numerous poets who have inspired great music such as Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Elizabeth Bishop, Edgar Alan Poe, Walt Whitman and the writers of the Psalms.

The composers we’ll hear tonight are Sergei Rachmaninoff (The Bells), Olivier Messiaen (Poemes pour Mi), Peter Lieberson (Neruda Songs), and of course Luciana Souza (Neruda).
Next time we’ll hear Steve Reich (Tehillim), George Crumb (Ancient Voices of Children), Randall Thompson (Frostiana), and Vincent Persichetti (Celebrations). If you have any other favorites of this type I should know about for future shows or any comments at all please let me know by calling the WJFF Voice Box 845-431-6500.

Lets start with Neruda songs by Peter Lieberson based again on the poetry of Pablo Neruda of Chile. This piece premiered in May 2005. It was based on 5 poems from the 100 Love Sonnets written by Neruda in 1960 for his love and wife to be Matilde Urrutia. Liberson wrote this musical setting for his wife the mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson who just passsed away recently of cancer. He says “each of the 5 poems that I set seemed to me to reflect a different face in love’s mirror. Although these poems were written to another, when I set them I was speaking to my own beloved Lorraine.” How amazingly generous of the Liebersons to share their final love song to each other. The final song, “My love, if I die and you don’t,” is a gentle exhortation not to grieve and concludes: “But Love, this love has not ended: just as it never had a birth, it has no death; it is like a long river, only changing lands, and changing lips.

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We’ve been listening to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson the mezzo-soprano singing peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs
Boston Symphony Orchesta conducted by James Levine Recorded live. 2005 Nonesuch Records

We Heard:
My Love if I die and You don’t
Rest with your dream in my dream
Don’t go far off
Love Love the clouds went up the tower of sky
If your eyes were not the color of the moon

Olivier Messiaen’s Poemes pour Mi of 1936 was dedicated to the composer’s first wife, violinist Claire Delbos; “Mi” was his nickname for her. Poemes pour Mi is a deeply personal work that explores the spiritual aspects of marriage. Like all Messiaen’s vocal works, the text was written by the composer.

…

That was Olivier Messiaen’s Song Cycle Poems pour Mi
with Phyllis Bryn-Julson soprano. Mark Markham piano 1996 Music and Arts CD 912

….

Good evening, this is Classics for Voice and I am Andy Sosnowski one of the host
s of this program on WJFF.

We just heard Luciana Souza singing the song Tonight I can write which is based on a poem by the Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda. This is from her CD Neruda

Our theme tonight is Music Inspired by poetry

Next is Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Bells of 1913 based on Edgar Alan Poe’s poem The Bells. He based the work on a translation into Russian by Konstantin Balmont which eliminated Poe’s repetitions, which are so central to his onomatopoetic devices, and he generally ignored Poe’s meter. Ironically, The Bells is often performed in English, using a translation of Balmont’s translation! The four sections of the work represent four aspects of life: birth, marriage, terror, and death.

…

We just heard Sergei Rachmaninoff’s The Bells Op. 35
St Louis Symphony Orchestra & Chorus cond by Leonard Slatkin 1982 on MMG MCD 10020

We heard:
The Silver Sleigh Bells
Mellow Wedding Bells
Loud Alarum Bells
Mournful Iron Bells

The four sections of the work represent four aspects of life: birth, marriage, terror, and death.

Next are more settings of Pablo Neruda poems by Luciana Souza. Hailing from Sao Paulo, Brasil has also set poems of Elizabeth Bishop which we will hear another time

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We heard Luciana Souza from the album Neruda 2004 on Sunnyside

We Heard:
House
We are Many