Wm Blake

[karlhenning]

[ Thread inspired by Elgarian's mention of a spot of dialogue. ]

Blake was purt near bonkers so much of the time, and yet . . . he did have his moments.

Following Britten's lead, I suppose, composer William Bolcom appears to have turned Blake into something of a cottage industry.

The famous (and, in inghilterra, institutional) setting by Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry of Blake's hymn "Jerusalem" . . . in all probability (and on its head) the first I knew of it was its occasional appearance in the odd Python skit ("Did somebody say mattress to Mr Lambert?")

And did those feet in ancient time,
    Walk upon Englands mountains green:
    And was the holy Lamb of God,
    On Englands pleasant pastures seen !

    And did the Countenance Divine,
    Shine forth upon our clouded hills ?
    And was Jerusalem builded here,
    Among these dark Satanic Mills ?

    Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
    Bring me my Arrows of desire:
    Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
    Bring me my Chariot of fire !

    I will not cease from Mental Fight,
    Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
    Till we have built Jerusalem,
    In Englands green & pleasant Land.

(Did Blake really not use an apostrophe in that last line, or is that wikisloppiness?)

These days, of course, that text just will not do . . . so in the 1982 Hymnal there is a tidy, bowdlerized text to which Parry's famous hymn may now be sung in the Anglican Communion:

O day of peace that dimly shines
through all our hopes and prayers and dreams,
guide us to justice, truth, and love,
delivered from our selfish schemes.
May swords of hate fall from our hands,
our hearts from envy find release,
till by God's grace our warring world
shall see Christ's promised reign of peace.

Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb,
nor shall the fierce devour the small;
as beasts and cattle calmly graze,
a little child shall lead them all.
Then enemies shall learn to love,
all creatures find their true accord;
the hope of peace shall be fulfilled,
for all the earth shall know the Lord.

Our warring world is a queerly liquid phrase to sing, especially to such a dotted rhythm.  And enemies, sung to land on the metrical accent at the last syllable, is some of the poorest prosody any living 'poet' has been guilty of.

[Brünnhilde forever]

Friend Karl: I am so lucky to have a friend very active in the William Blake Society, and a professor of literature, specialising in poetry! - Yes, it's the same friend I mentioned in another subject here at the Diner! -

Among others, he mentioned this in reply to your statements:

Even though Bolcom has made a full setting of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, that can hardly be called a cottage industry, and Britten is certainly not the only other composer (there are dozens) who has set Blake's poems--Vaughan Williams preceded him, for one--and Parry's "Jerusalem" is not a setting of a hymn at all, but a setting of the prologue to Blake's epic, "Milton" and on and on. ©tfd.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Havergal Brian loved Blake's poetry and set several of his poems to music.

[karlhenning]

 

Even though Bolcom has made a full setting of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, that can hardly be called a cottage industry, and Britten is certainly not the only other composer (there are dozens) who has set Blake's poems--Vaughan Williams preceded him, for one--and Parry's "Jerusalem" is not a setting of a hymn at all, but a setting of the prologue to Blake's epic, "Milton" and on and on.

A. Bolcom has used Blake for more than one major work;  the remark is coy, but it can stand, that this composer runs something of a 'cottage industry' with setting Blake (and why not?)

B. I'm sure I've never claimed that Britten is the only composer other than Bolcom to set Blake.  I should have found such a notion (that only these two composers have set Blake) bizarre at best.  Still, one does not begrudge Tom some low-hanging fruit.

C. Parry did not set the prologue.  Not the entire prologue, the greater part of which is in prose.  What he set, was four quatrains of verse.  As an English professor, Tom should know better than to quibble whether this verse is a hymn.  Knowing me for a composer, Tom should know better than to suppose that I take it for "The Old Rugged Cross."

[karlhenning]

It is the "elevated," or prophetic, visionary Blake that we encounter in Bolcom's Eighth Symphony, four movements on four poems from three of Blake's longer illuminated works. The first movement, "Rintrah roars," sets THE ARGUMENT, the poem prefacing The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), which is otherwise not in verse form. The second is "The shadowy Daughter of Urthona," the Preludium to America a Prophecy. The third, "This theme calls me," is from Jerusalem The Emanation of the Great Albion, and the finale, "A Song of Liberty," is the closing prophecy from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Of his settings, Bolcom says, "I'm after that kind of theatrical style that one finds in Blake, the phantasmagorical, that supersaturation of color and emotion." His description of his Songs of Innocence and of Experience as a "musical illumination" of Blake's poetry analogous to the artist-poet's own images is equally apt here, with the use of a large orchestra and rich harmonic language providing the necessary means for musical supersaturation.

[ Full notes here. ]

[karlhenning]

Four discs of music based on Blake texts . . . well, I do call that a cottage industry 

[Brian]

Four discs of music based on Blake texts . . . well, I do call that a cottage industry 

Not quite reached the popularity of the Sounds of the Rain Forest ambient noise CD cottage industry though.

[karlhenning]

I grant you that.

[Elgarian]

(Did Blake really not use an apostrophe in that last line, or is that wikisloppiness?)

I suppose this is definitive, since The Great Man himself etched it thus:

Blake was purt near bonkers so much of the time, and yet . . .

... if I had a time machine, I'd rather spend an hour in his company than in the company of almost all his supposedly non-bonkers contemporaries.

[karlhenning]

... if I had a time machine, I'd rather spend an hour in his company than in the company of almost all his supposedly non-bonkers contemporaries.

An hour, sure.

But three days?

[Elgarian]

An hour, sure.

But three days?

Heck, Karl, I only know one person I could spend three days with!

[karlhenning]

Heck, Karl, I only know one person I could spend three days with!

Well, you know one more than did Mrs Blake, then 

[Elgarian]

Well, you know one more than did Mrs Blake, then

Ah, brave Catherine. How far would he have got, without her?

[karlhenning]

Amen to that!

[Elgarian]

While we're speaking of people being bonkers, I'll share with you one of my personal treasures. Here's William Cowper, engraved by Blake from a drawing by Romney:





Now I fancy that he's caught the glint of madness in Cowper's eye pretty well; and I think you might be tempted to say, Karl, that it takes one to know one. But I'd say that while Cowper really did suffer bouts of madness, Blake knew perfectly well what he was about.

[jwinter]

What on earth is that on Cowper's head? 

[karlhenning]

You take the blonde, and I'll take the one in the toiban.

[Elgarian]

What on earth is that on Cowper's head? 

I think he kept his teapot under there.

[karlhenning]

Mind you, I don't dislike Blake for being bonkers.

[Elgarian]

Mind you, I don't dislike Blake for being bonkers.

Exactly. If he was bonkers, he was bonkers in all the best ways. Most importantly, I don't think he ever kept a teapot under his hat (unlike some).