Townsend: Songs from the Poets

As it says in my bio, from 2008 to 2011 I wrote a set of twelve songs for voice and guitar on poems selected from a wide variety of poets. I had thought for years about setting some of Robert Graves' poems, so the first three are from him. For the rest I chose one poem each from Li Po (also known as Li Bai), Philip Larkin, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens, Anna Akhmatova, Victor Hugo, John Donne, Rainer Maria Rilke and Aristophanes. With the exception of the Victor Hugo, all the poems are either in English or in English translation. Last weekend, six of the songs received their premiere and the next day we went into the recording studio to see if we could put them down on tape. We were mostly successful so over the next few days I will be sharing some of the songs with you.

I am grateful to Cherie Hughes and Roberto Limón for all their work in preparing these songs--there were some very tricky bits and they had no other performances to refer to for help!

I will start with the song "Listening to a Monk from Shu Playing the Lute" on the poem by Li Po (701 - 762), one of the most famous poets of the Tang Dynasty in China. He was also famous for two other things: as a calligrapher and as a drunkard! I have prepared a clip with a painting of Li Po reciting poetry followed by the only example of his calligraphy extant, then a painting of a performance on the pipa, the Chinese lute that was so popular during the Tang Dynasty. Next is a photo of a pipa from that era and last another painting of a pipa player.

Here is the poem in the translation of Vikram Seth:

The monk from Shu with his green lute-case walked

Westward down Emei Shan and at the sound

Of the first notes he strummed for me I heard

A thousand valley's rustling pines resound

My heart was cleansed, as if in flowing water.

In bells of frost I heard the resonance die

Dusk came unnoticed over the emerald hills

And autumn clouds layered the darkening sky.

In my setting I incorporate some sounds and ornaments of the pipa and I try to have the music simply respond to the poetry. In order to suggest the sound of the "bells of frost" I have used a technique stolen from John Cage--I have 'prepared' the sixth string of the guitar and the resulting odd, bell-like sound you will hear as the first and last notes of the song.