#ClassicsaDay #PoetryMonth Week 1 2025
By Ralph Graves
April is Poetry Month. The Classics a Day challenge for April is to post examples of classical music inspired by poetry. The most obvious cases are poems set to music. But sometimes, inspiration runs deeper.
Here are my posts for the first week of #ClassicsaDay #PoetryMonth.
4/1/25 Ralph Vaughan Williams: Three Shakespeare Songs
These a cappella works were originally written in 1951 as test pieces for a choral competition. Two songs are from “The Tempest,” the third from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
4/2/25 Aaron Copland: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
Copland composed this cycle in 1950, each poem was dedicated to a different friend. In 1970, Copland finished an orchestral arrangement of this work.
4/3/25 Franz Schubert: Du bist di Ruh (Friedrich Ruckert)
Friedrich Ruckert was one of the most popular poets in 1800s Germany. Many composers set his poems to music — including Franz Schubert.
4/4/25 Robert Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 39 (Joseph von Eichendorff)
Eichendorff was a popular novelist and poet of the Romantic Era. His poems were often incorporated into his novels, sung by the protagonists. Schumann’s cycle is taken from a collection of Eichendorff poems, “Intermezzo.”
