Setting Poetry to Music

 

April is Poetry Month. Many classical piano composers found inspiration in poetry, either by setting poems to vocal music with piano accompaniment (Lieder) or by creating programmatic piano works directly inspired by poetic themes. Leading piano composers include Franz Schubert, who wrote over 600 songs based on Goethe's poetry, and Claude Debussy, who set verses from Verlaine and Mallarmé. 

Here are other classical piano composers who integrated poetry into their work:

• Franz Liszt (1811–1886): Heavily influenced by literature, including Dante's Divine Comedy, creating works that treated music as a "poetic language".
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): Composed songs based on poetry by Goethe and Friedrich Schiller (e.g., Ode to Joy).
• Robert Schumann (1810–1856): His piano cycles were frequently inspired by literature and poems, including setting scenes from Goethe's Faust.
• Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849): While known as a "musical poet" for his piano writing, he also composed songs set to Polish lyrics. 
• Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): : His virtuoso piano suite Gaspard de la nuit is based on three prose-poems by Aloysius Bertrand.

Poetic Poulenc

 

Classic composers can also be poetic. One of Tomoko’s favorites is Frenchmen Francis Poulenc, who was also a celebrated pianist.

 Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was born in Paris on the cusp of the 20^th century: January 7, 1899. Poulenc’s mother played the piano competently, and Poulenc developed broad musical taste. However, his father would not allow Poulenc to study at a music conservatory. Fortunately, early 20^th century Paris was a cultural hot bed and Poulenc was able to befriend piano and composition mentors Ricardo Viñes, George Auric and Erik Satie. The young composers admitted him to “Les Nouveaux Jeunes,” a circle of protégé musicians. In the 1920s, Poulenc was known as one member of “Les Six”: up and coming composers. Poet Cocteau served as the group’s father figure.

Indeed, Poulenc met several avant-garde poets and set their poems to music. In fact, his first public composition, Rapsodie nègre, featured African-style poetry. Only 18 at the time, his five-movement piece was impressive enough that Stravinsky helped Poulenc to get a contract with a music publisher. Even while serving in the French army, Poulenc set poems (in this case, Apollinaire) to music; the resultant song cycle was an international success. His incorporation of poetry continued in the 1930s, at which point his music was one of the first to be broadcast on BBC television. During World War II Poulenc set French Resistance poets’ works to music, which sometimes could not be performed in France when it was under German occupation – so was broadcast in England. Poulenc also performed his songs; Pierre Bernac and he dueted for over twenty years in Paris and internationally.

Poulenc also composed operas, ballet music, liturgical works, and chamber music thoughout his life, which ended in 1963 from a heart attack.

Tomoko’s album Baroque-20^th Century features Poulenc’s break-out piece Movements Perpétuels” and his mid-career “Villageoises,” which was inspired by the French countryside. Like Poulenc, Tomoko appreciates the natural rhythm of poetry, which music can accentuate.

The music of Japanese poetry

Over the centuries, poetry has often been set to music. Indeed, Tomoko’s brother Hidehiko became a composer who would draw upon Japanese nature poetry to inspire his own compositions. On May 5, 1997, at the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor, Tomoko and a handful of other instrumentalists performed music based on the poetry of Hojo Nakajima.

Hojo Nakajima is a contemporary of Tomoko. He was born in Fukuoka, Japan, and was educated at Kyushu University. The first anthology of his poetry was published in 1990, and that decade was his more productive one. He rose to become a Chamberlain to the Crown Prince of Japan, taking charge of the royal family’s daily life. In particular, he was responsible for music and ceremonies.

One of his most important duties was serving as special assistant of the New Year Poetry Recitation Commission (KyuchuKtakai Hajime), one the most popular and famous imperial ceremonies. This annual event is a legacy of Japanese courtly literature, dating back to the eighth century. Each year the Emperor chooses a theme, and anyone can submit an original poem. Specialists perform the winning poems performed in a traditional manner. The defining Japanese poetry form is tanka, a short poem of 31 syllables arranged in lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables each. Not surprisingly, Hojo Nakajima is a master of this form.

 On the international scene, Hojo Nakajima has been honored in Brazil, Finland, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States.  

Tomoko appreciates the importance of lyrics in musical compositions. She advises her students to study the words of a piece before launching into the musical notes because that exercise helps her students understand and interpret the music. Tomoko knows: “The power of words is made stronger by music.”

Celebrants of Culture

On May 5, 1997, Tomoko played piano compositions for the poetry of Hojo Nakajima. Singers and musician with Western and Japanese performed her in this evening of music celebration, held at the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Hojo Nakajima was in Fukuoka, Japan, born two years earlier than Tomoko. He was Chamberlain to the Crown Prince and part of the Imperial Household Agency. His first poetry anthology was published in 1990.

The history of  the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor begins earlier in the century. A replica of Paris’s Palaise de la Légion d’Honneur was constructed by the French for the 1915 San Francisco Panama Pacific International Exposition. At the end of the exposition, the French government sugar magnate Adolph Spreckels to build a permanent ¾ sized replica, which was completed in 1924. Spreckel’s wife, Alma, wanted the city to have a new art museum, so the family donated it to the city of San Francisco, in memory of WWI California military casualties. In 1995 the museum was renovated to make it seismic safe, and was enlarged in the process to handle more exhibits and services.

Since the beginning, the museum has been located in Lincoln Park, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. IT collects ancient and European art, and houses the largest collecxtion of works on paper in the western United States. The museum’s Spreckels gallery also contains a symphonic organ, which is played every Saturday for concerts; another space holds the Gunn Theater, which is a venue for chamber music concerts.

Tomoko’s performance was held in that theater, and Tomoko likely saw the original Palaise when she visited Paris as part of her time as a contestant at the Long-Thibaud International Piano Competition, thirty years before her performance at the San Francisco Palace.

All of these people and places reflect celebrated the international world of culture, and we are their beneficiaries.