Symphonic Poems
Hi, write_away. For our Saturday prompt, let's play with music interpretation!
Have you ever seen Fantasia? In it, Disney animates stories to go with wordless, classical music. The idea of music representing stories is not new, it became common practice in the nineteenth century, but baroque and earlier composers did it, too.
Vivaldi's Four Seasons is an example. The three movements of the Spring concerto match three sonnets (this translation loses the form):
Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.
Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.
Your prompt is to take a work of music that has no words and write a poem or a series of events or remarks that make a story from the music. Comment here and I will suggest some music for you, or you can pick something for yourself. An extra challenge may be to take a work that has a definite, canonical story to it, such as Dukas' symphonic poem based on Goethe's Sorceror's Apprentice, and create a whole new narrative or impression for it.
Have you ever seen Fantasia? In it, Disney animates stories to go with wordless, classical music. The idea of music representing stories is not new, it became common practice in the nineteenth century, but baroque and earlier composers did it, too.
Vivaldi's Four Seasons is an example. The three movements of the Spring concerto match three sonnets (this translation loses the form):
Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.
Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.
Your prompt is to take a work of music that has no words and write a poem or a series of events or remarks that make a story from the music. Comment here and I will suggest some music for you, or you can pick something for yourself. An extra challenge may be to take a work that has a definite, canonical story to it, such as Dukas' symphonic poem based on Goethe's Sorceror's Apprentice, and create a whole new narrative or impression for it.