Ian Bostridge, classical tenor hailing from the UK, once again visited Worcester’s Tuckerman Hall in March for a performance of Lieder spanning the centuries. Accompanied by pianist Julius Drake, a long-time collaborator, the two presented a series of classically-set Shakespearean poetry, featuring composers spanning from Haydn to Shubert to Dowland. For those not yet introduced to the art form, the plural German noun Lieder (singular Lied) means “songs,” but in particular for lovers of classical music, the term refers to songs with piano accompaniment that are explorations of written texts – poetry, certainly, but other texts as well.
As was highlighted by a sneak-peek video Exploring Shakespeare through Classical Music posted by the host of this concert, Music Worcester, the audience of this event was guaranteed to be unique, the setlist appealing to more than just fans of Bostridge’s work or classical music. Scholars and casual enjoyers of poetry and classical texts could find refuge for their afternoon, and engage with an alternative facet of their interest. With an equal emphasis being placed on the texts as an independent entity rather than a contingent property of the music, this concert expanded the listening experience from one purely aesthetic to an intellectual experience as well, allowing a diverse audience from varied backgrounds to appreciate the art in a new way, shifting the focus away from the music, a phenomenon rare for the concert hall.
Such a unique setlist set-up – a clear departure from the typical offering, that would offer a more diverse set of styles and genres – gave the listeners that afternoon both a refreshing insight into the evolution and changes over time in the genre. Although the process sometimes works in the other direction, that is, text being shaped or even written for the music, the process followed over the composition of the music heard that afternoon, and indeed much of the time in classical music, is that already-existing texts were chosen, and the music was composed according to the ideas and mood set by the text. Thus, focusing on a single genre like this allowed for even the casual listener to notice the differences in how composers approached these classic texts and yielded a more focused, intimate approach to not only this genre of music but also the texts themselves as a co-entity of the program, rather than a secondary characteristic.
Although text-setting in music has existed for centuries, with poetry-based text setting emerging in full force during the Romantic era, there remains no standard way in which composers approach these texts, even in modern writing. While some, like Shubert, choose to preserve the original characters, moods, and meanings behind the poems, other composers explore the poems in ways that recreate them as their own new works, changing word orders and lines, repeating words, and creating new emotional shifts with the music. The real challenge of text-setting in music is the tension to find the balance between creating something new while preserving the original art – the poetry. This delicate co-mingling between artistic forms is certainly a difficult one and often requires a compromise of both sources: the music must be shaped around the framework of the text, and the text re-shaped to give way to the musical line.
The underlying implications of this, however, complicate matters. The addition of music to a poem necessarily implies something added that the text alone does not communicate. Even in the most faithful settings, the melodic lines, dynamics, articulation, and rhythmic placement all shape the text in a way that does not merely repeat the meter of a spoken line. The more musical artistry pours from the composer, the further there is a departure from the basic words of the text, and the result is a re-interpretation of the poem, often in new and divergent ways. In fact, the musical setting of texts often stems directly from this kind of work: analysis and interpretation of the text, the choice of emotional shifts, high and low points, and the crafting of a musical picture that presents this understanding of the work to the world. The beauty of interpretation only adds to this complexity, with even the smallest details altered by the performer – a breath here, a look between the two, the slightest inflectional change – creating a subtly new and different story.
Yet, following this line of questioning, a secondary consideration that composers and poets alike have struggled with alongside all artists and creators that put their work into the world is, to whom does their work belong? Of course, copyright laws give us one answer to that. Wait long enough; the texts and ideas can be used in any way possible. Such a simplistic answer, however, poorly captures the true stakes and discourse around the question. Ought all texts be used to create something new? The American poet Mary Oliver famously disagreed, much to the chagrin of composers and artists who admire her work, stipulating that her work was not to be set to music. Others, like Shakespeare, appear to have been more open to the idea, as evidence points to texts such as the ones heard in concert here being performed to popular songs as part of their original presentation.
This context adds a new layer of complexity and interest to the program, not only showcasing how different composers interpreted the texts, but also demonstrating the overarching evolution of Lieder as a genre. This program not only showcased how each composer, acting as a case study for their period of work, approached a similar interpretative challenge with the tools offered by the musical era in which they were working, but also how musical trends have reinterpreted classical texts again and again.
At the end of the day – or the concert – perhaps the ultimate beauty of Bostridge’s program was best reflected by his audience that afternoon: a crowd composed of avid musicians and classical music lovers alongside English majors and poetry fans, and of course, people new to both just along for the ride. This is the joy of the open collaboration that Lieder inspires.