#ClassicsaDay #PoetryMonth Week 4
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 fourth week of #ClassicsaDay #PoetryMonth.
04/21/25 Benjamin Britten: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne
Britten set a selection of John Donne’s sonnets after viewing the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1947.
04/22/25 Peter Warlock: The Curlew (W.B. Yeats)
Warlock selected four poems by W.B. Yeats for this work. He completed it in 1922, and it was premiered that same year.
04/23/25 George Butterworth: Is my team ploughing? (Houseman)
Butterworth set six poems to music from A.E. Houseman’s “Shropshire Lad.” Butterworth completed the work in 1911. He would go on to set additional poems from the collection.
04/24/25 George Butterworth: A Shropshire Lad (Rhapsody for Orchestra)
Butterworth wrote two song cycles based on A.E. Houseman’s “Shropshire Lad.” His orchestral rhapsody served as an instrumental epilogue to the project. It premiered in 1913.
04/25/25 Ralph Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge (Houseman)
Vaughan Williams set six poems from A.E. Houseman’s “Shropshire Lad” to music. Originally, the songs were for voice and piano. In 1924, Vaughan Williams created a version for voice and orchestra.
