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February 9, 2010 5:58 AM Subscribe
Recommend literature/poetry set to (classical) music for my mix!
I'm making a mix of songs that are adaptations from literature and poetry.
So far I have:
- I Saw No Shadow of Another Parting: An operatic aria sung by Kiri Te Kanawa, from the film Great Expectations that adapts a passage from the book.
- She Walks in Beauty: Byron's poem as a song.
- Sonnet 29: Rufus Wainwright sings a Shakespeare sonnet.
- The gorgeous Rilke and Neruda songs as sung by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
I'm not looking for songs about writing or literature (as in these previous threads), but specifically literary adaptations.
What else could be added to this mix? All of the examples here tend to lean towards the classical/opera side of things as I'm particularly partial to literature/poems as arias. (This list was mildly helpful, but seems to lean more towards rock?)
I'm making a mix of songs that are adaptations from literature and poetry.
So far I have:
- I Saw No Shadow of Another Parting: An operatic aria sung by Kiri Te Kanawa, from the film Great Expectations that adapts a passage from the book.
- She Walks in Beauty: Byron's poem as a song.
- Sonnet 29: Rufus Wainwright sings a Shakespeare sonnet.
- The gorgeous Rilke and Neruda songs as sung by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
I'm not looking for songs about writing or literature (as in these previous threads), but specifically literary adaptations.
What else could be added to this mix? All of the examples here tend to lean towards the classical/opera side of things as I'm particularly partial to literature/poems as arias. (This list was mildly helpful, but seems to lean more towards rock?)
Check out When Love Speaks, a CD of Shakespeare's poems set to music (and read by famous actors)...
posted by jdroth at 6:16 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by jdroth at 6:16 AM on February 9, 2010
The soundtrack to Jane Campion's film Bright Star has several tracks with poems (or portions of poems) by John Keats spoken over music.
posted by ocherdraco at 6:23 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by ocherdraco at 6:23 AM on February 9, 2010
"I Am Stretched on Your Grave" (Kate Rusby, and for comparison Sinead O'Connor and Abney Park).
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:37 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:37 AM on February 9, 2010
Carla Bruni did an album a couple of years ago called No Promises and all of the songs on there were (I think) poems set to music -- mostly 19th century poets: Dickinson, Browning, etc.
posted by pised at 6:43 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by pised at 6:43 AM on February 9, 2010
More folk than classical, but Blake scholar Kevin Hutchings has an album of Blake poetry set to music.
posted by synecdoche at 6:47 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by synecdoche at 6:47 AM on February 9, 2010
German lieder are all settings of poems by people like Goethe and Eichendorff and Heine and all kinds of other german romantics.
Schubert's Erlkoenig is one of the more famous of the bunch.
Also try Shumann, Schubert, Brahms, Wolf.
posted by chicago2penn at 6:53 AM on February 9, 2010
Schubert's Erlkoenig is one of the more famous of the bunch.
Also try Shumann, Schubert, Brahms, Wolf.
posted by chicago2penn at 6:53 AM on February 9, 2010
Since you don't specify Western classical music, I'm going to suggest Yvette Mimieux reciting Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil to the music of Indian classical musician Ali Akbar Khan.
Great stuff.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:34 AM on February 9, 2010
Great stuff.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:34 AM on February 9, 2010
Hem did the soundtrack for a Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night. Much of it is instrumental, but cuts 6, 9, and 14 might suit.
posted by rtha at 8:09 AM on February 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by rtha at 8:09 AM on February 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
josephine foster has recently released an album named graphic as a star - which is her performing emily dickinson's poems with folky bluesy accompaniment, and which is wonderful.
she also did an album of lieder a couple of years back, a wolf in sheep's clothing, which i also really enjoyed.
posted by soi-disant at 8:26 AM on February 9, 2010
she also did an album of lieder a couple of years back, a wolf in sheep's clothing, which i also really enjoyed.
posted by soi-disant at 8:26 AM on February 9, 2010
Some of my favorites that fit your bill:
Knoxville Summer of 1915, music by Samuel Barber, poetry by James Agee.
Lee Hyla's setting of Ginsberg's Howl, performed by the Kronos Quartet.
Pretty much the entire oeuvre of Ned Rorem.
Aaron Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson.
Ezra Pound was actually a composer in his own right.
The second half of Mahler's 8th is an incredible setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust.
And let us not forget the final movement of Beethoven's 9th! A setting of Schiller.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:05 AM on February 9, 2010
Knoxville Summer of 1915, music by Samuel Barber, poetry by James Agee.
Lee Hyla's setting of Ginsberg's Howl, performed by the Kronos Quartet.
Pretty much the entire oeuvre of Ned Rorem.
Aaron Copland's Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson.
Ezra Pound was actually a composer in his own right.
The second half of Mahler's 8th is an incredible setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust.
And let us not forget the final movement of Beethoven's 9th! A setting of Schiller.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:05 AM on February 9, 2010
I like Lucy by the Divine Comedy. Wordsworth set to music.
posted by saveyoursanity at 10:44 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by saveyoursanity at 10:44 AM on February 9, 2010
Benjamin Britten set some of W.H. Auden's songs to music. But they collaborated lots generally, and lots of Britten's operas (e.g., Billy Budd, Death in Venice, Turn of the Screw) were adaptations from literary works -- although I don't know whether there are arias therein that in fact set, verbatim, passages from the original texts.
posted by taramosalata at 11:01 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by taramosalata at 11:01 AM on February 9, 2010
Stephen Chatman's a cappella arrangement of Christina Rossetti's poem "Remember" is stunning and heartrending. Here is a decent example of it being sung, and here is another track link.
posted by ilana at 11:32 AM on February 9, 2010
posted by ilana at 11:32 AM on February 9, 2010
Try Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel (settings of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson)--preferably in the marvellous recording by Bryn Terfel. Lots of other 20c British composers too--Roger Quilter's settings of Shakespeare for example. Or for something a bit heavier and orchestral--any of Mahler's song cycles (Song of the Earth, Kindertotenlieder, Songs of a Wayfarer); Berlioz' Summer Nights, or Elgar (Sea Pictures).
Thanks for the question--the desire to put my two bobs' worth in finally prodded me into joining MF.
posted by Logophiliac at 11:45 AM on February 9, 2010
Thanks for the question--the desire to put my two bobs' worth in finally prodded me into joining MF.
posted by Logophiliac at 11:45 AM on February 9, 2010
Another one for the more folk than classical category, but it's such a darn fine album that I must recommend:
Kris Delmhorst's Strange Conversation
Her musical style varies on this album greatly, so there might be something there for you yet.
(clicking on lyrics, then scrolling down to the album will get you the lyrics and the poem/author that inspired the song)
posted by wg at 12:47 PM on February 9, 2010
Kris Delmhorst's Strange Conversation
Her musical style varies on this album greatly, so there might be something there for you yet.
(clicking on lyrics, then scrolling down to the album will get you the lyrics and the poem/author that inspired the song)
posted by wg at 12:47 PM on February 9, 2010
I really like this, "Bridal Ballad" by Edgar Allan Poe, performed by Hayley Westenra.
posted by Jelly at 8:16 AM on February 10, 2010
posted by Jelly at 8:16 AM on February 10, 2010
Response by poster: Thank you for the suggestions, they all sound pretty interesting!
posted by so much modern time at 7:00 PM on February 10, 2010
posted by so much modern time at 7:00 PM on February 10, 2010
Not really classical: Eddie Reader sings Robert Burns
posted by Arthur Dent at 4:45 PM on February 22, 2010
posted by Arthur Dent at 4:45 PM on February 22, 2010
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It sounds kind of like a very very drunk Velvet Underground home recording, but you might find it interesting.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:11 AM on February 9, 2010