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.
Resounding Verse
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 "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.