Music and Poetry: Problems of a Song-Writer

Author(s): Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1944), pp. 102-111
Published by: Oxford University Press
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 MUSIC AND POETRY
PROBLEMS OF A SONG-WRITER
By MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO
I HAVE WRITTEN a great many songs in my life; I have
published
more than one-hundred and fifty (not to mention all that have
remained in my desk) and I have composed them in all the lan-
guages I know-Italian, French, English, German, Spanish,Latin.
My ambition-even more than that, a profound urge within me-
has always been to unite my music to poetic texts that arousemy
interest and emotion, to interpret them and at the same time to
set them forth in lyric expression,to stampthem with the authentic
and therefore undetachable seal of melody, to give utterance to
the music that is latent within them, and, in doing so, to discover
their real source in the emotions that brought them into being.
In short, it is the "need for song" that has spurredme on, a need
quite naturaland altogetherfamiliarto Italians.But, at least during
the g9thcentury, my countrymen satisfied this need predomi-
nantly through theatremusic (in which the quality of the words-
which were often only a pretext-counted little); whereas my
preferredterritory has been the more intimate one of vocal cham-
ber music, and my aim that of approachingthe purest and highest
poetic expressions,not only in Italian,but in foreign languagesas
well. That is why I have set to music not only Saint Francis of
Assisi, Dante, Petrarca, Redi, and Leopardi, but also Vergil and
Horace in Latin; in French, the poets of the Pleiade, de Musset,
Proust, Gide, and Valery; in Spanish, the popular poets of the
Romancero; in German, Heine; and finally, in English, Shake-
speare,Milton, Walter Scott, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Keats,
ElizabethBrowning, and Walt Whitman. It is becauseof this long
experience and devotion that I think I am able to speak of song
with some fundamental knowledge and that I propose to study
in this short essay the different problems to which this form of
composition gives rise-not expecting to exhaust the field, which
is entirely too vast, but only hoping that my remarkswill stimulate
someone else to further investigation.
I02

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 MusicandPoetry I03
The "need for song"-most authoritiesclaim, and I believe so
too-was probably the cause of the first musical manifestationof
primordialman, a manifestationthat was doubtlessone of his first
in any art. He was impelled to express (in song as well as in
words) elemental feelings (such as joy and grief), appealsto the
supernatural,calls to battle-resulting in songs of love, religion,
celebration, war; songs that were first transmittedby oral tradi-
tion and were then, in more civilized times, made permanent in
writing. And it is also in the more civilized periodsthat the associa-
tion of poetry and music began to take on a more definitely artistic
form. This associationsoon produced different, specializedgenres;
it divided into several "branches" (often far removed from one
another, at least in appearance)-epic, religious, convivial, lyric,
dramatic-, according to the aspirationsor needs of the human
community. It is the lyric expressionthat chiefly interests us for
present purposes, a type that answers a rather "subjective" and
"individual" urge (whereas the other genres respond rather to
"collective" needs). And lyric song itself developed into two,
often widely divergent branches: on the one hand, the folk-song,
that rich and elemental harvest planted by instinctive and anony-
mous artists;on the other hand, a more refinedand cultivatedgenre
resulting from a more conscious amalgamation of poetry and
music, a type that served (especially in the Middle Ages, the
Renaissance,and up to the i8th century) as the intellectual and
aristocraticart of the court. But it must be added that, as in the
folk-song, there are often traits of a very individual character,
vigorous and powerful; great artists of all periods (including the
moderns) in their happiestexpressionshave succeeded in assimilat-
ing the simple and healthy spirit of the folk-song into their own
richer and more personal language. In any case, I believe we may
say that, in all periods in which there is an abundance of lyrics
set to music, there is a flowering of lyric poetry, and that the
proportions of the two correspond in a more or less steady ratio.
The parallelwould make a most interesting subject of study, and,
as far as I know, although partial investigations may have been
made, a complete one is still lacking. I do not think of making the
attempt myself (especially in this paper), but I point it out to
historiansand musicologists "of good will", and I cannot refrain
from suggesting several chaptersthat might prove particularlyat-
tractive: without going back to the Greeks (of whose music we

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I04 The MusicalQuarterly
unfortunately know too little), the art of the troubadours,the
influence of Arcadian poetry on the Italian aria da camera, the
relations of Romantic poetry to the German Lied, and those of
symbolist and impressionist poetry to the songs of the French
moderns (Faure, Debussy, Ravel). In these last two relationships
(easier to study because the documents are more recent), the evi-
dence is striking. I do not believe that the flowering of the Lied
would have been so vigorous and abundantif the poets had not
provided it with such seeds, offering to musicians (and in forms
particularly appropriateto music) hundreds of poems likely to
inspire and move them. One may say that musicians sometimes
preferredmediocre texts to great poetic works and that their talent
neverthelessallowed them to give us remarkablepages, sometimes
masterpieces;but I answerthat without Goethe we would not have
had such "miracles"as Der Erlkinig or Gretchen am Spinnrade,
and without Heine we would not have had the Dichterliebe, the
most perfect of love cycles. And with the French, the influence
of Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarme, and Maeterlinck on modem
musiciansis evident (as is that of impressionistpainting), even in
their style in general, as is shown by those of their musical works
that are not associatedwith a text.

thatwe have arrivednecessarily at too rapid a pace-

Now
Now that we have arrived-necessarily at too rapid a pace-
at modern times, let us pause to consider the problems that con-
front present-day composers in writing songs. I deal here with
the song in its most simple and elementary form, which is that
for a voice accompanied by a single instrument (nowadays the
piano). Obviously, the song with orchestraoffers other possibili-
ties and makes other demands on the composer-such as greater
variety and vaster dimensions.
First of all there is the choice of the poem. I know it is not
easily made. I have already said that composersof Lieder found a
wide choice among the works of their contemporaries, the
Romantic poets, who felt in the same "vein", who had the same
sensitivity; as one may say also of the French musicians at the
end of the century, who discoveredkindredspiritsin the "twilight"
poets. But to go back to the same texts that they treated would be
useless or at least dangerous: one would have difficulty in inter-
preting them-I do not say better, but even as well as did the

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 Music and Poetry 105
celebrated musicianswho have already done so in what might be
called "definitive" fashion; the re-setting, at best, would be but
an echo of the same experience. We are still too near the older
musiciansto try an essentially different interpretation,and the in-
dividual expressionthat should be present is therefore precluded.
I cite only one exception to the poets of the recent past whose
works are, at least for the present, insusceptibleof fresh interpre-
tations;that exception is Heine, whose melancholy and sentimental
side the Romantic musicians so often and so happily expressed,
but whose ironic and mordant side they completely neglected.
For us as modern composers (perhapsmore skeptic, but also more
ready for subtle and varied nuances) he still offers possibilities;and
I myself have set to music, which a Romantic musician would
undoubtedly have considered "sacrilegious",two poems of his,
Am Teetisch and Der wunderbareTraum. Perhapswe have little
opportunity of successfully setting contemporary poetry, which
often (it may be the fault of the times) offers few attractionsto
a composer's fancy: it is sometimes an arid poetry, a collection
of verses and rhythms interesting as an intellectual game, but fre-
quently too esoteric to arouse a sympathetic chord in another
artist'sheart.I have spoken of "verse":to make versesis not neces-
sarily to make poetry, especially musical poetry. Frequently,
artistic prose, having a rhythm that is wisely and harmoniously
disposed, gives a stronger suggestion to the musician than does a
mediocre poem (and it presentsno greater technical problems). I
cite, for example,the Chansonsde Bilitis (on prose texts by Pierre
Louys), in which Debussy gave us most exquisite examples of
his sensitivity-not to mention entire operas, such as Pelleas et
Melisandeand Boris Godounov-two indisputablemasterpieces-,
in which Debussy and Musorgskyset the prose of Maeterlinckand
Pushkin. (I myself have been more deeply inspired by the Frag-
ments of Marcel Proust in prose than by many a fine piece of con-
temporarywriting in verse.)
"But", one will ask, "what are the qualitiesof a poem requisite
to its suitability for musical setting? What is the ideal poem?"
Naturally, it is difficultto say. The answer dependsespeciallyupon
the sensitivity of the composer, and also upon the genre he pre-
fers: he may have a strongerleaningtowards dramaticor lyric, gay
or sentimental poetry. Just the same, I believe there are some
necessary conditions common to all-first, one that goes to the

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io6 The MusicalQuarterly
essence: the poem must have an "expressivecore"; it should ex-
press a "state of soul", whatever the musician'spreferences may
cause the nature of that state to be; it should, in any case, be
capable of awakening a "resonance"in the composer's soul; it
should express the "core" in a perfect, simple and direct, clear,
and harmoniousform, rich, but without too many words. A cer-
tain "margin" should be left for the music: from this point of
view, an intimate and restrained poem is preferable to a too
sonorous and decorative one. (I cite a typical case: the great
Italian poet, Gabriele d'Annunzio, who, with his vast wealth of
words, seems to have amused himself by creating a sort of over-
whelming and flamboyant verbal music, is a real difficulty to the
composer. That is why, I think, attempts to set his poetry have
succeeded so rarely, with one notable exception: the admirable
I Pastori of Pizzetti).
There are also other conditions, those of dimensions,of form.
The poem should not be too long (unless the song is for voice and
orchestra,a type which, as I have said, offers other possibilities);
nor, on the other hand, should it be too short (unless there are to
be several songs in a cycle). From this point of view also, the
Romantic poets offered ideal texts to their musicians-texts not
only expressive,varied, and harmonious,but of reasonablelength.
Great Italian poetry, however, presents many difficulties in this
respect. One cannot set "The Divine Comedy" to music, and,
among the smaller forms, the sonnet (a prime favorite of Italian
poets) is most unadaptableto music-first, because of the con-
tent, which is often too philosophic and intellectual;next, because
of its almost too strict form; and finally, because of the difficulty
of balancing quatrainsand tercets into different musical periods.
The less strict forms of the canzone and the ballataare generally
preferable, or poems that are entirely free.

I have said that contemporarypoetry does not frequently offer

inducementsto composers;but we have a great heritagefrom past
centuries in the literaturesof all countries and all languages.And
when I speak of foreign languages,I have in mind original texts,
not translations. Translations of poetry are almost always "be-
trayals". (Traduttore, traditore.) Even if there is not a betrayal

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 MusicandPoetry 107
of the contents, there is a betrayalof rhythm or of form, and these
are poetic elements too precious and essentialto be neglected.
This leadsus to anotherproblem: the often discussedone of the
"musicality" of the different languages. That quality doubtless
differs in degree from one tongue to another; but each language
has its own special expressive possibilities (at least according to
the fairly wide experiencethat I have had), and they are worth the
trouble of trying out.
If one asks me what the most musical language is, naturally I
answer, "Italian!"First, because it is my own language;then, be-
cause it is universally recognized as the most agreeable and easy
language to sing. Broad, expressive,sonorous, it lends itself admir-
ably to song, and one can easily understandwhy Italy is considered
the fatherlandand even the source of bel canto. But my admiration
and preference for my native language do not prevent me from
recognizing the qualities of other languages also. French, doubt-
less less suitable for impassionedoutbursts (and consequently for
song), is nevertheless subtler and lends itself to more exquisite
nuances. Spanish has certain characteristicssimilar to those of
Italian, except for a hardness sometimes more severe (and also,
in compensation, a softness sometimes more languorous). I shall
not say much of Latin, the mother of all these languages, except
to note that it is generally regardedas a languageespecially fitting
for sacredpurposes,as the languageof prayer. One is apt to forget
its rich secular literature. I recall that, in my first years of study
in Florence, the Director of the Conservatory was scandalized
because I composed choruses on the Eclogues of Vergil instead
of choosing to write motets. I have never tried Greek (distant
memory of my early studies!) and in Hebrew I have composed
only one chorus. German is an admirably rich language, quite
in a class by itself by virtue of the forcefulness of its declamation,
which permits vocal leaps that would be quite inexplicable in
other languages (and also explainswhy Wagner is untranslatable).
I have left English for the last, not because I consider it less
musical, but, on the contrary, because I am surprised that its
musicality is so often doubted. I must confess that I too approach
it with certain misgivings, so unfavorably had I been conditioned.
My first encounter with English was by way of Shakespeare.Dis-
satisfied with an Italian translation of "Twelfth Night", from
which I was setting several songs to music, I wanted to know the

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io8 The MusicalQuarterly
original text, and I was overjoyed and surprised to discover its
language to be not only of perfect beauty, but also of astonishing
"musicality".I could not rest until I had set to music all the songs
I could find in the tragedies and comedies, and I was miserable
when I had exhaustedthe supply. In ShakespeareI found my ideal,
the greatesthumanrichness,the greatestpsychological profundity,
united with the most supple and varied poetry. I have often been
asked whether, in setting Shakespeareto music, I had been pre-
occupied with historicalconsiderations-that is to say, with com-
posing music in the Elizabethan manner. The answer is "No",
because Shakespearehas seemed to me the most alive and most
modern, the most eternal and universalof all poets (more so even
than Dante), and I feel him to be a "contemporary".After Shake-
speare came Shelley, and then the others I have mentioned, up to
the American Walt Whitman, that great fraternalsoul. Certainly,
the English of Shakespeareand Shelley was not that of the man
in the street; their poetic languageis of suprememusicality, and I
believe that one can discover in the great English lyrics treasures
similar to those the German Romantics offered to the composers
of Lieder.
To be sure, English does present some remarkabledifficulties
to the song-writer. One, for example, is its great number of
monosyllabic words, which it is difficult to distribute over a
melody in an expressivefashion and, at the sametime, with correct
accentuation. But, on the other hand, it is perhaps just this-its
very lack of "sonoroussubstance"-that lends English its charm,
and makesit one of the most "spiritual"and transparentlanguages
I know.
* *

I have already mentioned "song", "melody", "accent"; and I

shall now reconsider them briefly together with some other prob-
lems and difficulties that confront the composer.
What is "song"? It is difficult to define. Fundamentally,it is
a "gift of God", a deliveranceof the humansoul. And I have often
saidthat, if I were to envy some greatmusicianof the past,it would
not be Bach for his fugues, or Beethoven for his symphonies, or
Wagner for his music-dramas,but perhapsSchubert for some of
the simplest of his Lieder, such as Du bist die Ruh or Litanei,

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 MusicandPoetry o09
miraculousflowers of the spirit, as consoling as a friendly smile or
a gentle tear.
But if one refuses to be satisfiedwith a transcendentexplana-
tion, it will be possibleto arriveat a more positive and satisfactory
one by way of defining "accent".Accent is the expressivequality
that results when one throws into relief, while creating a melody,
certain syllables in a word, words in a phrase, and phrases in a
sentence. This aspect of rhythm, this expressiverelief, this correct
prosody, is not all there is to a song; musical declamation (which
sometimes can be very efficacious) is not yet song itself. Song,
while incorporatingit, must go beyond it-must be a synthesis, a
sublimation. The placing of accent is a mechanical process, and
every conscientious musician can accomplish it; a complete song,
on the other hand, is a product of artistic creation, and its fashion-
ing is reserved for artistsof talent, for the fortunate few who are
gifted with both sentiment and fantasy.
Another problem is that of having a knowledge of the singing
voice, but it is a secondary problem that can be solved intuitively.
Every musician who truly "feels" song writes well for the voice;
those who write poorly for it are those who regard masteringits
special requirementsas a mechanicalprocess.In any case, we must,
in this connection, take into account the diverse natures of the
variouslanguages.As alreadypointed out, Italianpossessesa greater
sonorous expression; French and English (I believe) admit of a
more limited emotional range; while German permits vocal leaps
that would be absurd in other languages.
And now we come to the last problem,the practicalproblem-
how actually to write a song. That is quite personal.And heaven
forbid that I should try to promulgatecut-and-driedtheories.Each
system is good, provided it gives satisfactory results. It has often
happened to me-and, I am sure to my colleagues also-that the
question is asked (especially on the part of women): "How do
you compose your music?"or "How do you set a poem to music?"
or even "How are you inspired?"Questions so difficultto answer!
However, one can say something. For example, to the second of
these questions,I am likely to reply that, when I find a poem that
particularlyinterests me or arouses my emotion, I commit it to
memory and, at the same time, naturally, I analyze its form, its
character,its distribution of phrases,its possibilitiesfor contrast,
etc. After some time, when the poem has entered my blood, so

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11 The MusicalQuarterly
to speak (this may take anywhere from a day to several months),
I sing it quite naturally: the music is born. For me to love a poem
is to know it, it is to sing it! So much for the vocal part. But in a
song there is also the instrumentalpart, commonly called the "ac-
companiment",as though to impute to it a secondary character,
even though it is by no means the least important portion of a
song nor necessarily the easiest one to evolve. To produce it
properly is a matter of finding the right atmosphere,the "back-
ground", the environment that surroundsand develops the vocal
line. It is also a question of expressing through the instrument
what the voice alone cannot express. Finally, it is a question of
creating something that will combine with the vocal line to form
a quite inseparableand complete unity. This something exists in
the poetry too. One need only strike upon it. Just as the voice part
is born of the poem, so is the accompanimentgiven rise by it also
(through the mediumof the composer'sintuitionas well as through
analysis): it is latent in the poetry. I have already said that every
poem-for-musicmust have, above all, an "expressivecore"-which
may be formed of one or several fundamentalelements-, a core
that provides the key to the poem itself. It is this key, it is these
elements, that one must discover and to which one must give
utterance through almost "symbolic" musical means. I have said
that song is a synthesis; accompaniment itself is a synthesis too
(even if it grows partly out of analysis, which seems contradic-
tory). What will these "symbolic"meansbe? They may be several
and of rather different natures.But I believe I may state that the
simplest will be the surest and most efficacious.I myself began, in
my first songs, with accompanimentsrather complicated in har-
mony and rhythm. Afterwards I always tried to simplify, rather,
I must say, through instinct than through reason.I tried to express
my thoughts by the simplest and most natural means, even if, to
some, these might seem less "interesting".These different "sym-
bols" (and the greatestcomposersof Lieder have supplied us with
examples) may consist of a melodic element,a thematiccell (which
is sometimesin the voice part too), a rhythm (which may likewise
stem from the voice part, or may, on the contrary, be entirely
opposed to it), an instrumentalfiguration (we have hundreds of
celebrated examples;as for me, a simple arpeggio sufficed for my
Shakespearesong, "Arise", a chromatic scale for my setting of
Andre Gide's Ballade des biens immeubles) or, finally, some

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 Music and Poetry II
harmonic element-a series of chords or even a single chord. (I
note, as something of a curiosity, that, when I added to my Shake-
speare Songs two derived from "Hamlet"-"Ophelia" and "The
Clown in the Churchyard"-I constructed them both on this
chord: P and that, when I later began an Overture to
"Hamlet", it was on this same chord that the initial theme was
built, quite naturally; which would signify that this chord is sin-
gularly "Hamletesque"or, at least, that it is associatedin my sub-
conscious mind with the idea of "Hamlet"-I leave it to the
psychoanalysts). * *

This discoursehas been a great deal longer than I had intended.

I must bring it to a close.
I began by saying that song was the first musicalmanifestation
of man. I believe that it will also be the last. As long as humanity
remains,it will sing. And I should like to imaginethat its "farewell
to life" will also be a song. In the meanwhilelet our song be of life.
And let me express a hope: that English-speaking people
(Americans especially) find in their admirablepoetry-which has
given so much joy to me, an Italian-a rich source of inspiration
for their song literature,towards the furthering of happinessand
fraternity among men, as their great poet Whitman would have
wished.

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