What to do musically with the poems of Wallace Stevens, the ultimate abstruse American symbolist? Find out on these tracks, one of which is some high-popping electronica, and the other two choral works by decidedly modern composers.
Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955) was an American modernist poet born in Reading Pennsylvania, Educated at Harvard and NY Law School. While spending most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford Connecticut, he rose to senior prominence in the world of mid-twentieth century modernist poetry and won the Pulitzer Prize for his Collected Poems in 1955.
The Emperor Of Ice Cream (Critchley and Simmons)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M3DUHwxMdI
First the pop.
British philosopher and experimental artist Simon Critchley is a part of the band Critchley and Simmons with John Simmons. They have released four albums: Humiliation (2004), from which this track comes; The Majesty of the Absurd (2014); Ponders End (2017); and Moderate or Good, Occasionally Poor (2017).
If that sounds ponderous or square, guess again. Critchley has delivered in this piece an ear-worm of quasi punk bounce, turning Stevens’ abstruse writing into a jamming piece that will power you down the road.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
The Idea of Order at Key West (Robert Erikson)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rywqJPkrU6M
A 1979 cantata for Carol Plantamura, by Robert Erickson (1917 – 1997), an American composer from Michigan influenced Morton Subotnik and others, and one of the first American composers to create tape music. Carol Plantamura is a Los Angeles soprano specializing in 17th and 20th century music.
She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry
Thirteen ways of looking at a Blackbird (Jan Bijkerk)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJfeGlEz5KA
Song cycle by Jan Bijkerk, a Dutch composer, for mezzo soprano and piano.
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
These are some of the songs on our playlist of pop, rock, jazz, folk and classical music inspired by, referential to, spoken with, or adapted from written poetry. What’s on your turntable?
Spindleverse is a weekly blog presented by Radio Poet!que, a NYC-based Poetrybay blog dedicated to exploring the world of poetry in broadcast and recording, especially but not limited to how it is integrated into music and entertainment, and how it is presented in broadcast interviews and readings; but also in support of radio and podcasts that broadcast content supportive of audiences that are often overlooked by commercial interests or mass media
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