Music in literature

Hi Mark!

Sorry that you haven't received any responses. Perhaps it's outside of most people's knowledge here to make an intelligent comment as to whether or not he had intended some sort of a masque/musical? I wish that I knew the play well, so that I could contribute. The idea is fascinating though! I imagine that there are some good sites devoted to Shakespeare that might be engaged in such a debate? Or perhaps one of the contributers to "G" might be willing to offer their thoughts? Or maybe an email to some experts on the Bard might be willing to share their thoughts with you? Anyway, good luck! And please let us know if you find out anything further!

Best wishes,

Petra

Good stuff Uber thanks for that. I think you're right also on the depiction of Caliban being difficult.

Mark

Been trying to find some poems about music and finding it harder than I'd imagined it would be.

First of all, there are poems which have musical titles but where the subject matter isn't particularly musical; famous examples being Eliot's Preludes and Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth.

The Rattle Bag, great anthology edited by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, has a few; again a couple of the more well-known ones are Macneice's Bagpipe Music and DH Lawrence's Piano, a little trip down memory lane for the poet.

Ted Hughes' 3rd collection Wodwo has three poems of interest; Cadenza, Ludwig's Death Mask and Kreutzer Sonata referencing Tolstoy of course, but a brutal poem on ths subject of sex. Cadenza appears to be a collection of fantastic and strangely unconnected images beginning with 'The violinist's shadow vanishes' from where the images take over.

Ludwig's Death Mask is a decent poem; it has some great lines, viz the last two:

His ears dead to continue complete
In union with the communion of angels.

DST - My slim volume of Gunter Grass' poems - a selected poems really edited by Michael Hamburger, has 4 poems which often contain musical references beyond just the titles; The School for Tenors, Open Air Concert, Music for Brass and Hymn. Some surreal images in these poems, as in Music for Brass the first two lines:

Those days we slept in a trumpet.
It was very quiet in there,

A special mention goes to Gerald Manley Hopkins' Poem Henry Purcell, prefaced by the famous 'The poet wishes well to the divine genius of Purcell and praises him...'

Anyway, a short poem to end with on music, short enough to quote in full by Lorca and from The Rattle Bag:

The Six Strings

The guitar
makes dreams cry
The crying of lost
souls
escapes from its round
mouth.
And like the tarantula
it weaves a huge star
to catch sighs
that float on its black
wooden tank.

(translated by Donald Hall)

Can anyone think of any others?

Mark

Parla I'm amazed! I didn't think enough people had even heard of Creeley. (I only have one collection myself I think it's poems 50 - 65).

Nice stuff - love the Hardy poem too Vic.

Just remembered today -  the poem Music by Emerson - set by Howard Skempton as the first of four Emerson Songs on The Cloths of Heaven CD. (The Exon Singers on Delphian).

Might not be your cup of tea Parla - I notice at least TWO examples of parallel octaves from a cursory glance at the piece! I have the music to Music, if you see what I mean. Shocking how some composers DELIBERATELY break the rules. (Parla this is what Vic called gentle ribbing!)

Just to give a quick glimpse of the Emerson poem, which is good stuff, there is a varied refrain at the end of each of the three verses. From verse 2:

'But in the darkest, meanest things,
There always, always something sings!'

And just to clarify on one of the poems above, Macneice's Bagpipe Music isn't about music really, but it is most certainly about how people want the quick pay-offs of fast culture, which might be of interest given our recent debates. I think Vic and Parla and others we could safely say Macneice was ahead of his time - that poem was written in 1937! The first two lines will give the flavour:

'It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peep show'.

Mark

Well it just so happens that I am reading a historical fiction at the moment, called Prophecy by SJ Parris - the pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt who writes for the Guardian and Observer - and William Byrd has just made an appearance conducting some of his music before Elizabeth 1:

'Then Byrd lowers his hands in a sweeping gesture and a note breaks forth from the smallest boy, pure and clear as birdsong, its sweetness echoing to to the beams of the roof. Barely has he begun his note when the other voices join him, layering their harmonies piece by piece over one another, the bass notes holding firm and melancholy beneath the soaring, liquid music of the boys' voices. The song is a prayer for the queen, though the words slide through the melodies like water pouring over a fountain of glass'.

Good stuff. Perhaps a difficult task for a writer, to describe a real composer and the effect of his music in fiction.

(Parla - just a quick note - we're not pretending to be talking about music by referencing poems about music. The whole point of Vic's thread is music in literature!)