Resounding Verse: Recent Episodes
Stephen Rodgers
Join music theorist Stephen Rodgers as he explores how composers transform words into songs. Each episode discusses one poem and one musical setting of it. The music is diverse—covering a variety of styles and time periods, and focusing on composers from underrepresented groups—and the tone is accessible and personal. If you love poetry and song, no matter your background and expertise, this show is for you. Episodes are 20-30 minutes long and air on the first of every month.
I head back to university teaching tomorrow—and I know many teachers and students who are already back at it. In honor of this back-to-school season, here's an episode on a wild and wonderful song by New-York-based composers Lainie Fefferman and Jascha Narveson. In addition to composing a wide variety of music as individual artists, they are part of a synth-pop duo called The Beverage Station. The duo will release a full album, including this song, on May 30, 2025, from Gold Bolus Recordings.
Labor Day
Lainie Fefferman
Brand-new faces
Familiar halls
Tracking paces
Feel it in my throat
Bones break
Back aches
I could punch through walls
And then there's you
Heart explosions
Arms aglow
Big emotions
Pack up its time to go
Hours come
Seconds go
Cut to my fun walk home
Where there is you
Familiar faces
Brand-new halls
Making spaces
Sharing all I love
Calm comes
Back stroke
Keeping tallies of smiles and cheers
I know I've lost what I'm doing here
On September 27, 2024, Signum Records will release a recording of Rodrigo Ruiz's cycle of seventeen songs, Venus & Adonis, based on William Shakespeare's poem of the same name. In this episode, I dive into one of my favorite songs from the cycle, where Venus takes Adonis's hand and entreats him to open his heart to her.
For more information about Rodrigo Ruiz, you can find him on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkTree.
You can also learn more about his songs from this page on my website Art Song Augmented, and from this episode on his setting of a poem by Heinrich Heine.
The recording in this episode features soprano Grace Davidson and pianist George Herbert, who also appear on the forthcoming album of the cycle.
Frosty in Desire
William Shakespeare (adapted by Rodrigo Ruiz)
POET
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
and trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good.
Pure shame and awed resistance made him fret,
which bred more beauty in his angry eyes.
So fastened in her arms Adonis lies;
still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,
'twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale.
Still she entreats, and prettily entreats;
she red as coals of glowing fire,
he frosty in desire.
(25, 27–8, 69–70, 68, 75–6, 73, 35–6)
The Mass for the Endangered,by Nathaniel Bellows and Sarah Kirkland Snider, appeals not to God but to nature itself and (in Snider's words) takes the "musical modes of spiritual contemplation" associated with the Latin mass and applies them to "concern for non-human life—animals, plants, and the environment."
The third movement of the Mass, "Alleluia," describes the brutal destruction of the natural world yet at the same time offers a promise of renewal.
The episode features a recording of the movement by Gallicantus, under the direction of Gabriel Crouch; an album of the entire Mass was released in 2020 by New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records.
If you're interested in learning about another haunting collaboration by Bellows and Snider, check out my podcast episode on "The River," from their song cycle Unremembered.
Alleluia
Nathaniel Bellows
Sea of cradle, foundling,
current, cold and quelled as morning.
Braid of vapored ashes,
shadowed creche, collapsing.
Contour, carve, corrode—
breathe through camphor, coal,
seed each breeze with gold.
Poison, parch, pollute—
plow the coast, the dune,
flow toward constant moon.
Alleluia
Hearth of stone, of tar, of lava,
shelter shielding mother.
Oh, save us mother!
She who is sleeping,
Is she who will wake.
Fracture, foist, defoul—
shatter cliff and shoal,
sand each stone to whole.
Harbored, held, unharmed—
she’ll wake, rise, rejoin,
her daughters and her sons.
Alleluia
The title track from Rhiannon Giddens's recent album You're the One—which was just released by Nonesuch Records—is a love song, but not one about two adults; it's about a moment Giddens experienced with her newborn son, pressing her cheek against his and realizing that her world would never be the same again.
In this episode I reference a book by Matt BaileyShea called Lines and Lyrics: An Introduction to Poetry and Song. If you're interested in learning more about how words and music relate in pop songs and art songs and everything in between, I'd urge you check out his book. It's superb, and really accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike.
You're the One
by Rhiannon Giddens (the song was cowritten with Lalenja Harrington)
I knew you were the one
Were my one and only
And I knew
That you would always know me
Cause you were the one
Who kept me from feeling
So sad and lonely in my life and
I never knew
Life could be so wonderful
That there could be someone
Who was so beautiful
And I never knew
That I could be so free
To love someone like you and
I wanna love you forever
And I’ll be with you
For worse and for better
And I never thought I’d fall
But you’re the one
I thought my life was drawn
In shades of gray and
That washow
I would live my everyday and
Aimless no direction found
My destiny was going through the motions of a life and
Then you came along
With your sweet sweet smile and
Then you put your cheek
Right next to mine and
All those shades of gray slowly turned into a
New technicolor world and
I’m gonna love you forever
And I’ll be with you
For worse and for better
And I never thought I’d fall
And I’m gonna love you forever and
I’ll be with you for worse and for better
And I never thought I’d fall
But you’re the one
You’re the one
Your smile contains the sun
Rays of glory
You’re the one
Have you ever felt as though a single moment—gazing into someone's eyes, listening to a passage of music, looking at a landscape—transports you to another realm? Maurice Bouchor's poem is about just this kind of experience, an experience that the French composer Mel Bonis transforms into a magical sound world that deftly blends Romanticism and Impressionism.
The episode features a recording of the song by Hélène Guilmette and Matin Dubé, from an album called L'Heure Rose.
For more information about Mel Bonis, go to the Mel Bonis website, maintained by Christine Géliot. You can also learn more about her songs at my website Art Song Augmented.
Songe (an excerpt from Vers le pur amour)
by Maurice Bouchor
Guidé par de beaux yeux candides,
Dans ma barque féerique aux reflets d'argent fin,
Vers l'amour, je voudrais faire voile sans fin
Sur des rêves bleus et splendides,
Vers l'amour dont le souffle frais
Berce des champs de fleurs dans une île enchantée
Et qui, pour apaiser mon âme tourmentée,
M'ouvrira de saintes forêts.
Et plus tard, quand, loin de la terre,
O Viola ! Guérie des brûlantes langueurs,
Nous irons caresser les songes de nos coeurs
Dans l'île heureuse du mystère.
Dans le libre ciel des esprits,
Quand nous aurons quitté la nature mortelle,
Ne goûterons-nous pas une paix éternelle ?
Rêveusement, tu me souris.
———
Guided by beautiful, innocent eyes,
In my magic boat with reflections of fine silver,
Toward love I would like to sail endlessly
On blue and splendid dreams.
Toward love, whose fresh breath
Cradles fields of flowers in an enchanted island,
And which, to appease my tormented soul,
Will open holy forests to me.
And later, far from the earth,
O Viola, cured of burning languor,
We will go to caress the dreams of our hearts
On the happy island of mystery.
In the free sky of the spirits,
When we have left our mortal nature,
Will we not taste eternal peace?
Dreamily, you smile at me.
Arthur Symons's poem captures a lazy June afternoon, with a fountain burbling and the moon hanging in the sky, waiting for the coming of night. Elizabeth Maconchy transforms the poem into a song of mesmerizing stillness and beauty.
The episode features a world-premiere recording by soprano Joanna Songi and pianist Matthew Fletcher, based on an unpublished manuscript found in the Maconchy archive at St. Hilda's College, Oxford. You can find a YouTube video of their performance here.
For an illuminating look at Maconchy's life and work, see the final chapter of Anna Beer's book Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music.
Also please check out the Maconchy page on my website Art Song Augmented, which includes another recording by Songi and Fletcher, as well as additional resources and access to scores.
In Fountain Court
by Arthur Symons
The fountain murmuring of sleep,
A drowsy tune;
The flickering green of leaves that keep
The light of June;
Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
The peace of June.
A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
The white curved moon;
June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
Wait too, with June;
Come, through the lingering afternoon,
Soon, love, come soon.
The Haitian-American composer Nathalie Joachim transforms a Haitian hymn, and in so doing creates a multi-layered tapestry of sound that evokes the many voices of Haiti—past, present, and future.
"Resevwa Li" comes from Joachim's Grammy-nominated 2019 album Fanm d'Ayiti (New Amsterdam Records), featuring the Spektral Quartet.
Resevwa Li
Men n’ap proche devan ou Granmèt
Avèk tout ti kado n yo papa
Li mèt tout piti kou li ye,
Tanpri resevwa li
Adye papa souple
Kisa pou m ta ba ou
Ou ki fè tout bagay
Ou ki mèt tout bagay
Kado nou pot pou ou
Se tout jefò n ap fe
Pou peyi n devlope
Pou lavi nou pi bèl.
Receive Them
We come before you, God
With all of our little gifts, Father
As little as they may be
Please receive them
Oh father, please
What should I give you
You, who make everything
You, who create everything
The gifts we bring to you
Are all of our efforts
To benefit our country
For our lives to be the most beautiful
translation by Nathalie Joachim
Connie Converse was one of the first singer-songwriters, an uncommon talent who predated Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. But she was barely known in her day, and after making a handful of low-fi recordings in the 1950s, she disappeared in 1974. Her songs weren't widely known until some of those low-fi recordings were released on CD in 2009. This episode looks at one of her most affecting songs, which appears on Walking in the Dark, a recent album by soprano Julia Bullock, in an arrangement by Jeremy Siskind. Julia Bullock performs the song with Christian Reif.
For more information on Connie Converse's songs, go to her page on my website, Art Song Augmented.
Also, be on the lookout for Howard Fishman's book about Connie Converse, To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse, which is forthcoming in May 2023.
One by One
Connie Converse
We go walking in the dark.
We go walking out at night.
And it's not as lovers go,
Two by two, to and fro,
But it's one by one.
One by one in the dark
We go walking out at night.
As we wander through the grass
We can hear each other pass,
But we're far apart.
Far apart in the dark
We go walking out at night.
With the grass so dark and tall
We are lost past recall
If the moon is down.
And the moon is down.
We are walking in the dark.
If I had your hand in mine,
I could shine, I could shine
Like the morning sun,
Like the sun.
We know very little about the German composer Marie von Kehler (1822–1882), who served as a "lady in waiting" to a princess and seems to have been acquainted with Johannes Brahms. But we do know that she wrote over eighty songs that were published over a decade after her death—none of which had ever been recorded until Stephan Loges and Jocelyn Freeman recorded four of them for my website Art Song Augmented. This episode looks at one of the best Kehler song's, a setting of a poem by Julius Sturm about a strange prayer that someone says to a beloved who has wounded him.
For more information on Marie von Kehler's songs, go to her page on Art Song Augmented and check out my blog post on her on the Women's Song Forum.
Nur einmal möcht' ich dir noch sagen
Julius Sturm
Nur einmal möcht' ich dir noch sagen,
Wie du unendlich lieb mir bist,
Wie dich, so lang mein Herz wird schlagen,
Auch meine Seele nie vergißt.
Kein Wörtlein solltest du erwidern,
Nur freundlich mir in's Auge sehn,
Ja, mit gesenkten Augenlidern
Nur stumm und schweigend vor mir stehn.
Ich aber legte meine Hände
Dir betend auf das schöne Haupt,
Damit dir Gott den Frieden sende,
Den meiner Seele du geraubt.
———
Just once yet I would like to tell you
How endlessly dear you are to me,
How as long as my heart still beats
My soul, too, will never forget you.
You need not reply with a single word,
Just look kindly into my eyes,
Yes, with lowered eyelids
Just stand before me, speechless and quiet.
But I laid my hands
Prayerfully upon your beautiful head,
So that God might send you the peace
That you have stolen from me.
Thanks to Sharon Krebs for her help with the English translation.
Carolyn Forché's 46-page poem "On Earth" forms the basis for a song cycle called The Blue Hour, which was composed by five women—Caroline Shaw, Shara Nova, Rachel Grimes, Angelica Negrón, and Sarah Kirkland Snider—and just released on CD this month by Nonesuch and New Amsterdam Records.
This episode looks at one of Caroline Shaw's contributions to the cycle, a song that embraces Bach and plainchant and, in just over three minutes, captures the immensity of time and the cosmos.
The episode features a recording of the song by the chamber ensemble A Far Cry, with Shara Nova.
You can find the score to The Blue Hour here.
Please also check out my episode on Caroline Shaw's "A Gradual Dazzle."
Firmament
an excerpt from Carolyn Forché's "On Earth"
firmament, fissure, flare stars, frottagefragments from the Second Brandenburg
fresh wind of the linens
from a gloved hand a flaming bottle
from chance to chance, event to event
from earth to satellite, event to event
from our last train ride through the ricefields
from the cathedral comes Kyrie
Francis Jammes's poem depicts two lovers who sit on a bench, alone together under the shade of overhanging branches. But it's not clear if the scene is real or imaginary. In her setting of the text, Lili Boulanger heightens the poem's sense of mystery—and also the poetic speaker's anxiety that the blissful moment may only be a figment of his imagination.
You can find the score to Boulanger's song here.
The episode features the a recording of the song by tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang, from their CD Clairières: Songs by Lili and Nadia Boulanger.
Learn more about Boulanger's songs, access her scores, and hear another performance by Phan and Huang on my website Art Song Augmented, an online forum devoted to songs by underrepresented composers.
Nous nous aimerons tant
by Francis Jammes
Nous nous aimerons tant que nous tairons nos mots,
en nous tendant la main, quand nous nous reverrons.
Vous serez ombragée par d'anciens rameaux
sur le banc que je sais où nous nous assoirons.
Donc nous nous assoirons sur ce banc, tous deux seuls.
D'un long moment, ô mon amie, vous n'oserez...
Que vous me serrez douce et que je tremblerai...
We will love each other so much that we won't speak
but just stretch out our hands to each other when we see each other again.
You will be in the shadow of ancient branches,
on the bench where I know we will sit.
So we'll sit on that bench, alone together.
For a long moment, o my sweetheart, you won't dare...
How sweet you will be to me, and how I will tremble...
Thomas Walsh's poem and Mary Turner Salter's setting of it capture the moment between day and night—and the desire to linger in that moment as long as possible.
The episode features the first-ever recording of Mary Turner Salter's "Afterglow," performed by soprano Camille Ortiz and pianist Gustavo Castro and engineered by Joseph Wenda. I commissioned the recording for Art Song Augmented, my website devoted to art songs by underrepresented composers. Learn more about Salter's songs, access her song scores, and hear three other performances by Ortiz and Castro on her Art Song Augmented page.
You can find the score to Salter's song here.
Afterglow (by Thomas Walsh)
Over the orchard one great star;
The mellow moon—; and the harvest done;
And the cheek of the river crimsoned far
From the kiss of the vanished sun.
Nathaniel Bellows’ poem and Sarah Kirkland Snider's haunting setting of it—from her song cycle Unremembered—revisit the site of a childhood trauma and meditate on innocence and the mechanisms of memory.
The performance of the song features vocalists Padma Newsome, DM Stith, and Shara Worden, and the Unremembered Orchestra (members of ACME, Alarm Will Sound, ICE, The Knights, and Sō Percussion), conducted by Edwin Outwater.
In the episode I discuss Nathaniel Bellows' illustration that accompanies his poem; you can find this illustration, as well as the others associated with the song cycle, on the Unremembered website.
Anne Carson's poem and Caroline Shaw's mesmerizing setting of it meditate on the feeling of being in and out of time.
The recording of the song, which appears on the album Let The Soil Play Its Simple Part (Nonesuch, 2021), features Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion (Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting).
The 21st-century Mexican composer Rodrigo Ruiz sets a text by the 19th-century German writer Heinrich Heine. In so doing, Ruiz channels 19th-century musical style and offers a deeply moving interpretation of a poem about the loss of love and the death of an artistic tradition that Heine once held dear.
The performance of the song features soprano Grace Davidson and pianist Christopher Glynn.
The song appears on the CD An Everlasting Dawn. Check out Ruiz's recent CD of chamber works, Behold the Stars, on the Signum Classics label, and be on the lookout for Signum's release of his song cycle Venus & Adonis.
Kendra Preston Leonard's poem and Lisa Neher's song—about a man who sells fresh fruit on a summer day—celebrate something sumptuous where we would least expect it.
The performance of the song is by Arwen Myers, who is also featured in a previous episode about a song by Florence Price.
Be sure to check out other collaborations by Kendra Preston Leonard and Lisa Neher, especially the works in their micro-opera festival.
Strawberry Man
The Strawberry Man
and his little pinto pony
Sweetness, slaked
in the city street
Poem reproduced with permission from the author
Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and it has been set to music by many composers. This episode explores an extraordinarily inventive setting by the Black American composer Margaret Bonds (1913–1972), recently recorded by bass-baritone Justin Hopkins and pianist Jeanne-Minette Cilliers and soon to be published by Hildegard Publishing Company, in an edition by John Michael Cooper.
This recording comes from a playlist created by Hopkins and Cilliers, which includes performances of music by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.
See also John Michael Cooper’s blog post on this song, as well as the list of Bonds works published by Hildegard Publishing Company.
In Julia Johnson Davis's poem "To My Little Son," a mother imagines what her baby boy will look like when he's twenty-one years old, and wonders whether, when he's grown up, she'll see glimmers of the boy in the man. Thinking of her own son, Florence Price turned to Davis's poem and created a song that is nuanced, affecting, and deeply personal.
The recording of “To My Little Son” is by soprano Arwen Myers and pianist Monica Ohuchi.
In Nikolaus Lenau's poem "Scheideblick" (Parting Glance) a man leaves his beloved and, as he departs, imagines sinking his happiness into the ocean. Josephine's Lang's setting of the poem evokes the ebb and flow of the sea, and also the ebb and flow of the emotions associated with it.
For more on Josephine Lang, see Harald and Sharon Krebs's book Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs.
The recording of “Scheideblick” is by mezzo-soprano Milagro Vargas and pianist Susan Manoff.
The protagonist in Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem looks upon a tree that has died and wonders what caused it to wither. She stands apart from the scene, awed and perplexed, but at a crucial moment enters the scene and takes a decisive action. In H. Leslie Adams's song, that action seems even more decisive—and even more brutal.
The recording of "Branch by Branch" is by Darryl Taylor and Robin Guy, and comes from a CD called Love Rejoices: Songs of H. Leslie Adams.
Maya Angelou's poem "Phenomenal Woman" tells women that they don't have to conform to conventional ideas of femininity. Farayi Malek uses her voice to amplify Angelou's, and to lift up the voices of other women who at times struggle to feel comfortable in their own skin—and who deserve to feel phenomenal just as they are.
The recording of "Phenomenal Woman" features the following musicians:
Farayi Malek, voice
Jason Yeager, piano
Margaux Vranken, organ
Aaron Holthus, bass
Jas Kayser, drums
Lihi Haruvi, alto sax
Kiera Harman, trombone
Aiden Lombard, trumpet
Announcing a new podcast about poetry and song. Join music theorist Stephen Rodgers as he explores how composers transform words into songs. Each episode discusses one poem and one musical setting of it. The music is diverse—covering a variety of styles and time periods, and focusing on composers from underrepresented groups—and the tone is accessible and personal. If you love poetry and song, no matter your background and expertise, this show is for you. Episodes are 20-30 minutes long and air on the first of every month. The podcast launches on Tuesday, June 1, with a batch of three episodes.
The trailer features a clip from Farayi Malek's song "Phenomenal Woman" (sung by the composer) and Josephine Lang's song "Scheideblick" (performed by mezzo-soprano Milagro Vargas and pianist Susan Manoff).