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Resounding Verse

Stephen Rodgers

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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 20-40 minutes long and air around the first of every month.

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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
by Kendra Preston Leonard
The Strawberry Man
and his little pinto pony
Sweetness, slaked
in the city street
Poem reproduced with permission from the author

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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.

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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.
Learn more about Lang's songs, access her song scores, and hear video performances of six of her songs by tenor Kyle Stegall and pianist Eric Zivian on Art Song Augmented, my website devoted to art songs by underrepresented composers.
Scheideblick
by Nikolaus Lenau
Als ein unergründlich Wonnemeer
Strahlte mir dein tiefer Seelenblick;
Scheiden musst’ ich ohne Wiederkehr,
Und ich habe scheidend all mein Glück
Still versenkt in dieses tiefe Meer.
Like an unfathomable ocean of joy
Your soulful gaze shone for me;
I had to take leave, knowing I would never return,
And as I departed I quietly sank
All my happiness into this deep ocean.

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06/01/21 • 33 min

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
Phenomenal Woman
by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

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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.
Branch by Branch
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Branch by branch this tree has died.
Green only is one last bough
Moving its leaves in the sun.
What evil ate its root,
What blight,
What ugly thing?
Let the mole say,
The bird sing,
Or the white worm behind the shedding bark
Tick in the dark.
You and I have only one thing to do,
Saw, saw, saw the trunk through.

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05/15/21 • 3 min

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).

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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).

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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.
The River
by Nathaniel Bellows
On the banks
The wash so brown
The shadows blue
They’re black

I saw the form
Astride the loam
Splayed out upon
Its back

A bear, a dog
A bed, a log
A child’s eyes
Are pure

Until the hands
Of the missing man
Were clear against
The dew

The river’s flow
A blackened bow
That tied around
Our town

Had sapped his life
Like a lantern’s light
Buried
Underground

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09/01/22 • 21 min

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 and a video recording 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.

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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...

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