Poetry

Poetry and music have been linked through song, chant, theatre, and oral tradition since antiquity. In popular and classical forms, poems may become lyrics, librettos, art songs, hymns, or spoken-word pieces. The tag gathers stories where the words carry unusual weight, whether through literary sources, symbolic imagery, political meaning, or the close relation between rhythm and speech.

25 articles related to Poetry:

ORCHESTRA

Greensleeves: the folk melody behind Vaughan Williams' Fantasia

Greensleeves is one of the best-known English folk melodies, first published in 1580 as a broadside ballad titled A Newe...
MEDITATION

Vinayagar Agaval: medieval lyrics linking Ganesha with yoga practice

Vinayagar Agaval is a popular sacred hymn of South India praising Ganesh—one of the most worshipped deities in the Hindu...
PIANO

Ständchen from Schwanengesang serenade as Schubert's last testament

Originating in Europe in the Middle Ages, the serenade (ger. ständchen) is a love song composed for one vocal line and a...
SONGWRITER

Longfellow Serenade and the fireside poet that kindled Neil Diamond's song

Longfellow Serenade is a notable 1974 hit released by Neil Diamond, a prolific American songwriter who sold more than...
PIANO

La fille aux cheveux de lin: Parnassian poem behind Debussy's most recorded piece

La fille aux cheveux de lin or The Girl with the Flaxen Hair is the best-known piano prelude by the French impressionist...
SONGWRITER

The Bells of Rhymney: two major modal modes of famous protest song

The Bells of Rhymney is one of the best-known protest songs of the past century, first recorded in 1958 by the American...
PIANO

Suite bergamasque: did Debussy record his best-known piano piece?

Suite bergamasque is one of the best-known piano works of the French impressionist Claude Debussy written in 1890 and... 1 comment
Poetry

Guajira Guantanamera: song meaning and origin of the lyrics

Guantanamera is a demonym—a word that identifies a group of people in relation to a particular place—in this case, used...
ORCHESTRA

Gabriel Faure's Pavane as the key to modern revival of early genre

The pavane—a slow processional dance of Italian origin—was quite common in Europe during the transition period from the...
Poetry

12,000 Annamayya songs discovered in a Hindu temple after 300 years of oblivion

It is believed that Tallapaka Annamacharya—a 15th-century songwriter who lived in South India—wrote over thirty thousand...
Poetry

On the Massacre of Glencoe: Walter Scott lyrics set to Beethoven's arrangement of folk melody

The Massacre of Glencoe is one of the darkest chapters in Scottish history which saw the treacherous slaughter of...
SONGWRITER

Salma Ya Salama: historical record by Sayed Darwish, the father of Egyptian popular music

Salma Ya Salama is a famous song written by songwriter Sayed Darwish who is considered to be the most influential...
Poetry

The Ektara: traditional music instrument of the Bauls, wandering minstrels from Bengal

Bauls are the wandering minstrels of the Indian subcontinent whose history traces back to the 15th century as mentioned...
Poetry

Down by the Salley Gardens: famous Yeats poem evoking old Irish love ballad was set to the traditional air

Down by the Salley Gardens is a famous two-stanza poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats whose contribution to the... 1 comment
Collaboration

Shakespearean characters expressed through atonality in atypical guitar sonata by Hans Werner Henze

Royal Winter Music is one of the most atypical works for classical guitar that reveals incredible possibilities of the...
Poetry

Lamento de la Ninfa: Monteverdi's song of love, fire and ice

Lamento de la Ninfa is one of the most famous vocal pieces of Claudio Monteverdi, a leading Italian composer whose work...
Poetry

The best Qawwali lyrics performed by prominent singers of the century

Phool Khil Jaaye by Abida Parveen and Asrar Shah Mere dil ki banjar zameen pe Oh maula Mere dil ki banjar zameen pe Mere...
Poetry

Peter Sinfield: the songwriter whose lyrics embellished the formative prog rock albums of the 1970s

Peter Sinfield is an iconic songwriter who has written for most influential albums of the prog-rock genre released... 3 comments
Poetry

Zefiro Torna: famous madrigal by Monteverdi lauds the west wind that brings spring

Originating in the 14th century as a poetic form, the madrigal is a short poem of lyrical content. During the...
Manuscript

Rich music collection of the Trecento times recovered from Florentine palimpsest

It is difficult to imagine, in the current digital world, the serious difficulties associated with recording any...
ORCHESTRA

The multicultural heritage of Granville Bantock from Celtic folk music to Eastern philosophy of Omar Khayyám

Granville Bantock was one of the most cheerful English composers whose rich heritage comprised more than 800 works which...
ORCHESTRA

A story of love and friendship in the music of World War I

Frederick Septimus Kelly, a gifted Australian-born musician who spent much of his life in England, was among the...
SONGWRITER

Sūrsāgar: ocean of poetry that expanded for five centuries

Sūrdās was a North Indian devotional poet, musician, and saint who lived in the 16th century. His lyrics, addressed...
Poetry

Sufi lyrics expanded all over the world thanks to Qawwali songs

Qawwali is a form of Sufi devotional music popular in South Asia. It is part of a musical tradition that stretches back... 1 comment
WILLIAM BLAKE

Prog rock version of Jerusalem was banned by BBC

Jerusalem is a British national song based on a poem by William Blake printed in 1808. At the heart of the poem is the... 4 comments