{"id":1381,"date":"2019-06-30T16:10:53","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T20:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1381"},"modified":"2021-07-09T13:31:53","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T17:31:53","slug":"whitman-and-music-a-fresh-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2019\/06\/whitman-and-music-a-fresh-discovery.html","title":{"rendered":"Whitman and Music: A Fresh Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s said that Walt Whitman has been set to music more than any other poet save Shakespeare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oddly, the most memorable of these settings may be by an Englishman: Frederic Delius\u2019s Sea Drift<\/em> (1904) and Songs of Farewell<\/em> (1930). There are also notably affecting Whitman settings by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Kurt Weill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about settings by American-born composers? An unlikely candidate may be the best of the bunch. It\u2019s a 1944 radio play, just revived by PostClassical Ensemble<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>at the Washington National Cathedral thanks to the invaluable advocacy of the Herrmann scholar Christopher Husted, who recreated the score and parts. You can hear it here: https:\/\/www.wwfm.org\/post\/postclassical-presents-music-bernard-herrmann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The makers of this 30-minute Walt<\/em> Whitman<\/em> were the titans of the genre: Norman Corwin and Bernard Herrmann. Beginning in 1939, they collaborated on original radio dramas 21 times. Corwin scripted and directed; Herrmann composed the music. Corwin\u2019s distinctive free-verse style derived from Whitman (and also, he testified, Carl Sandburg and Thomas Wolfe — lesser writers). Herrmann\u2019s radio work at CBS was the fundament for his unforgettable film scores, the first of which \u2013 Citizen Kane<\/em> (1941) \u2013 was composed for Orson Welles, himself a radio-drama legend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, Corwin, Herrmann, and Welles were all in their twenties when they first made their mark on live radio. By the time Corwin and Herrmann converged on Whitman<\/em>, American radio drama peaked as an eloquent mass-strategy to rally the home front. And so Walt Whitman was invoked as a champion of American democracy in time of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrmann was a composer whose versatility is still not acknowledged. His film scores, his radio scores, his cantata Moby Dick<\/em>, his big 1941 symphony, his opera Wuthering<\/em> Heights<\/em> all speak the same moody Romantic language. And Herrmann at 33, composing Whitman<\/em>, already sounds like the composer of Vertigo<\/em> (1958). The most hypnotically Romantic passage, magically scored for strings, harp, and celesta, supports Whitman\u2019s sublime imagery of grass:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess\nthe grass is the beautiful uncut hair of graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenderly\nwill I use you, curling grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may\nbe you transpire from the breasts of young men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can hear it by scrolling to 31:35 of Part Two here: https:\/\/www.wwfm.org\/post\/postclassical-presents-music-bernard-herrmann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Re-encountering this 30-minute radio poem today (our performance was the professional concert premiere), I marvel at the listening habits of Americans 75 years ago. But then, Americans once listened raptly to the high-pitched (and frequently obscure) rhetoric of Ralph Waldo Emerson. As listeners, as readers and speakers, our stamina has sharply diminished in the age of social media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film-historian Neil\nLerner, one of the commentators at the National Cathedral performance, pointed\nout that Corwin\u2019s script actually acknowledges the challenge of sharing\naspirational poetry with a mass audience. He interpolates a \u201cVoice\u201d whose\ninterruptions include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t follow you. You\u2019re\nover my head. Anyway, why don\u2019t you calm down? There\u2019s nothin\u2019 to get excited\nabout. Take it easy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corwin here segues seamlessly\nto Whitman:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you\nask dulcet rhymes from me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you\nseek the civilian\u2019s peaceful and languishing rhymes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you\nfind what I sang so hard to follow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why I\nwas not singing for you to follow, to understand \u2013 nor am I now;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to\nsuch as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And go\nlull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For I\nlull nobody, and you will never understand me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the National Cathedral\nperformance, William Sharp\u2019s delivery of Whitman\u2019s words gripped and held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program \u2013 a June 1 Bernard Herrmann tribute coinciding with the Whitman Bicentennial \u2013 also included music from Psycho<\/em> and Herrmann\u2019s 1967 clarinet quintet Souvenirs de voyage.<\/em> The Psycho<\/em> music \u2013 a terrific performance led by Angel Gil-Ordonez — wasn\u2019t the usual suite of film excerpts, but a persuasive \u201cnarrative\u201d for string orchestra created by the composer himself. The quintet \u2013 which I have several times extolled in this space \u2013 seems to me the most beautiful chamber music by any American. Our principal clarinetist, David Jones, is an inspired advocate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cathedral concert continued PostClassical Ensemble\u2019s advocacy of Bernard Herrmann as \u201cthe most under-rated twentieth century American composer\u201d \u2013 a claim<\/a><\/strong> we pursued for weeks during a 2016 Herrmann festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A forthcoming PCE Herrmann\nrecording, on Naxos, will feature the world premiere recording of Whitman<\/em>, along with the Psycho<\/em> narrative and clarinet quintet.\nHerrmann deserves to be as well-known to American concert audiences as Copland\nor Gershwin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WWFM Network live broadcast of our June 1 concert is now on the web: https:\/\/www.wwfm.org\/post\/postclassical-presents-music-bernard-herrmann<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It begins with the Psycho<\/em> narrative, followed by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–Dorothy Herrmann describing her crusty father (Part One: 29:59)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–The clarinet quintet (Part One: 31:15)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

–An intermission feature including the Whitman scholar Steven Herrmann and Murray Horwitz of WAMU\u2019s The Big Broadcast<\/em> (Part Two: 00:00)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—Whitman<\/em> (Part Two: 17:35)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s said that Walt Whitman has been set to music more than any other poet save Shakespeare. Oddly, the most memorable of these settings may be by an Englishman: Frederic Delius\u2019s Sea Drift (1904) and Songs of Farewell (1930). There are also notably affecting Whitman settings by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Kurt Weill. What about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-mh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1381"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2042,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381\/revisions\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}