Resounding Verse
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 every couple of months.
Episodes
22 episodes
Labor Day: Lainie Fefferman and Jascha Narveson
I head back to university teaching tomorrow—and I know many teachers and students who are already back at it. In honor of this back-to-school season, here's an episode on a wild and wonderful song by New-York-based composers
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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34:08
Frosty in Desire: William Shakespeare and Rodrigo Ruiz
On September 27, 2024, Signum Records will release a recording of Rodrigo Ruiz's cycle of seventeen songs,
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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29:32
Alleluia: Nathaniel Bellows and Sarah Kirkland Snider
The Mass for the Endangered, by Nathaniel Bellows and
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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39:57
You're the One: Rhiannon Giddens
The title track from Rhiannon Giddens's recent album You're the One—which was just released by Nonesuch Records—is a love song, but not...
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Season 3
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Episode 3
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30:43
Songe (Dream): Maurice Bouchor and Mel Bonis
Have you ever felt as though a single moment—gazing into someone's eyes, listening to a passage of music, looking at a landscape—transports you to another realm? Maurice Bouchor's poem is about just this kind of experience, an experience that t...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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33:39
In Fountain Court: Arthur Symons and Elizabeth Maconchy
Arthur Symons's poem captures a lazy June afternoon, with a fountain burbling and the moon hanging in the sky, waiting for the coming of night. Elizabeth Maconchy transforms the poem into a song of mesmerizing stillness and beauty.The e...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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28:52
Resevwa Li (Receive Them): A Haitian Hymn Reimagined by Nathalie Joachim
The Haitian-American composer Nathalie Joachim transforms a Haitian hymn, and in so doing creates a multi-layered tapestry of sound that evokes the many voices of Haiti—past, present, and future.
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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33:39
One by One: Connie Converse
Connie Converse was one of the first singer-songwriters, an uncommon talent who predated Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. But she was barely known in her day, and after making a handful of low-fi recordings in the 1950s, she disappeared in 1974. Her so...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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38:14
Letzter Wunsch (Last Wish): Julius Sturm and Marie von Kehler
We know very little about the German composer Marie von Kehler (1822–1882), who served as a "lady in waiting" to a princess and seems to have been acquainted with Johannes Brahms. But we do know that she wrote over eighty songs that were publis...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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28:06
Firmament: Carolyn Forché and Caroline Shaw
Carolyn Forché's 46-page poem "On Earth" forms the basis for a song cycle called The Blue Hour
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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36:24
Nous nous aimerons tant (We Will Love Each Other So Much): Francis Jammes and Lili Boulanger
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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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33:45
Afterglow: Thomas Walsh and Mary Turner Salter
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 "After...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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21:01
The River: Nathaniel Bellows and Sarah Kirkland Snider
Nathaniel Bellows’ poem and Sarah Kirkland Snider's haunting setting of it—from her song cycle ...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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29:23
Room in Brooklyn/A Gradual Dazzle: Anne Carson and Caroline Shaw
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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29:27
Sag, wo ist dein schönes Liebchen (Tell Me, Where is Your Beautiful Sweetheart): Heinrich Heine and Rodrigo Ruiz
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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26:46
Strawberry Man: Kendra Preston Leonard and Lisa Neher
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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21:43
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: Robert Frost and Margaret Bonds
Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and it has been set to music by many composers. This episode explores an extraordinarily inventive setting by the Black American comp...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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28:07
To My Little Son: Julia Johnson Davis and Florence Price
In Julia Johnson Davis's poem "To My Little Son," a mother imagines what her baby boy will look like when he's twenty-one years old, and wonders whether, when he's grown up, she'll see glimmers of the boy in the man. Thinking of her own son, Fl...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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22:08
Branch by Branch: Edna St. Vincent Millay and H. Leslie Adams
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. I...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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23:28
Scheideblick (Parting Glance): Nikolaus Lenau and Josephine Lang
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...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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22:37