I've recently been totally depressing myself (not REALLY ;-)) by listening to a setting of "Because I couldn't wait for death", the poem by Emily Dickinson. It was used as part of the libretto to Harmonium by John Adams' and it's FANTASTIC!!! It made me dig up Emily (if you see what I mean). I love her poem, but to me the music adds so much. I can't read it without hearing the crescendo of voices and the creaking chariot in the Adams piece. But heaven only knows what Emily D would have made of it! I gather that Houseman was pissed off with Vaughan Williams' setting of A Shropshire Lad, partly cos he missed out a verse about the local cricket team on the village green. Apparently they had a right feud about it. Not sure where I'm going with this, but it came to mind from reading Dave's recent thread about using screens with the words on, and also images and music, at poetry readings.

But going back to Vaughan Williams, for me he transformed Shropshire Lad into something far greater. Maybe that's enough to put any poet off!

What an interesting comment this is, and one close to my heart. Having been an active soloist/chorister, the marriage of poetry and musical composition has challenged me greatly both to balance the intention of the merger and to appreciate the enhancement of either or both. Lots of time it fails dismally where one or the other, poem or music, is tortured out of its original beauty; or it works well, embracing the empathy factor, eliminating totally the idea of 'competition'. Perhaps success is chiefly judged by an overall mood in any given combination, a mood which evokes a particular emotional response inherent in each of the parts. Critics will never agree, never. But it's worth thinking about, as it has been forever. Don't mean to sound like a toffee apple, but you have hit a nerve.