> I've been accused of uninformed comments, but this thread takes the cake. The one that took the cake was that that brought BJoel into the same paragraph that mentioned poetry (and music).
> I'll not pick on the sources, too many messages involved. Homer "wrote" (and > let's not pick on the fact that his poems were written down centuries later, > and were probably an evolution) before there was polyphonic music, although > I'm sure the sense of the independant melody was also there at the time. > Instruments of that time were probably setting a mode for the poem. But > there is no way for us to know. And I will object to the suggestion that > real poetry is "best not set to music", that is directly contrary to many > songs (including my own efforts to set A.E. Housman to music - successful on > one piece). You may object your heart's content, but Mayakovsky once said that any cheerful idiocy too embarrassing to see on the printed page can be sung with total impunity. This applies to any era, even if occasionally we see poetry among sung drivel. > Did the words to the choral section of Beethoven's Ninth come before or > after the music? Is that movement irrelevant to the Symphony (as some say)? > I find it integral. See above. > Woody Guthrie's songs were words written to old ballads, on the whole, Billy > Joel writes both (although I'm too old to know much about him, for the life > of me I couldn't name a song of his). Sullivan wrote his music to Gilbert's > words (and plots) - and they got pissed at each other, but got back together > (and that is the pop of their time). Lyrics are not poetry, although the notions do overlap occasionally, see above. Additionally, what do these 3 entities have to do with either poetry or classical music? > Music isn't singular, and isn't a matter of individual genious. Nor is > poetry. There have been over the millenia certain towering figures who have > moved their milieu into a new form. Shakespeare invented words, FYI, WS's words are typical of the Stratfordshire dialect. Music is entirely a matter of individual, someone has to write it, even if later becomes anonymous and/or readapted orally, as "folk-music". > only perfected the free verse form of his plays. I'd like to give credit to > that unknown ancient Greek who took his lyre or kithera and played a melody > to set the sense for the poem he was about to accompany. The oldest > instrument that has been found, to my knowledge, is a 30,000 year old > "willow flute" - which was probably used to imitate bird songs. This is > speculation of course, as we have no written records. But the legends of the > Celts, as written down long before the Renaissance, include the stories of > the "songs" accompanied by the harpist. (Do remember that much of the > written record of the Continent was destroyed in the Dark Ages, while the > apochyphal legends of the Celts were being preserved). I love it! This is worthy of Doug Smith.... Did they also have legitimately documented legends??? > > Like everything else in this world music is both an evolution, and is > undefined. Suffice to say that music and poetry are one, both are ways to > impart a feeling in the audience. It is my opinion that the poetry came > first in time, but that is moot. It not only came first, it is also more important, because unlike music it cannot be proscribed by Islam. But to the point of our conversation: Music has primacy over the text it utilizes, even in those cases when the text is more valuable than its music. Moreover, Brodsky wrote that "....Poetry is not simply an Art among other Arts, it is something larger. If the main difference between the Man and all other representatives of the animal world is the Speech, then Poetry, being the highest form of it, is our anthropological Goal." And to preclude any daft suppositions that I don't like vocal music with good poetry: FYI, I have 100 songs in German, Swedish, Danish, Italian, Russian and Ukrainian, with obbligato baroque lute, at http://polyhymnion.org/lieder And regardless of this, given an option to read poetry of to listen to it sung, I'd definitely opt for the 1st. RT
