#ClassicsaDay #PoetryMonth Week 1, 2022
By Ralph Graves
What’s the connection between classical music and poetry? To celebrate Poetry Month, the Classics a Day team encouraged folks to find out. For the month of April, the challenge is to post poetry used in classical music or works inspired by poetry.
04/04/22 George Crumb – Ancient Voices of Children
Crumb set the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca in 1970. It pushed the boundaries of vocal technique. And it features Crumb’s boundary-pushing and quite beautiful musical notation.
04/05/22 Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast
Coleridge-Taylor’s most popular work was the first of his three Hiawatha cantatas. The text was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Song of Hiawatha.”
04/06/22 John Adams – The Wound-Dresser
Walt Whitman’s poem was based on his experiences as a hospital volunteer during the Civil War. Adams set the poem to music in 1989.
02/07/22 Franz Schubert – Erlking<.h4>
Schubert set Goethe’s poem when he was 18. By some accounts, he composed this iconic lieder in just a few hours.
02/08/22 Ralph Vaughan Williams – Toward the Unknown Region
Vaughan Williams set several texts by Walt Whitman. This 1907 cantata was based on Whitman’s poem “Darest Thou Now O Soul.” The title comes from the poem’s second line.
