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
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, Venus & Adonis, based on William Shakespeare's poem of the same name. In this episode, I dive into one of my favorite songs from the cycle, where Venus takes Adonis's hand and entreats him to open his heart to her.
For more information about Rodrigo Ruiz, you can find him on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkTree.
You can also learn more about his songs from this page on my website Art Song Augmented, and from this episode on his setting of a poem by Heinrich Heine.
The recording in this episode features soprano Grace Davidson and pianist George Herbert, who also appear on the forthcoming album of the cycle.
Frosty in Desire
William Shakespeare (adapted by Rodrigo Ruiz)
POET
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
and trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good.
Pure shame and awed resistance made him fret,
which bred more beauty in his angry eyes.
So fastened in her arms Adonis lies;
still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,
'twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale.
Still she entreats, and prettily entreats;
she red as coals of glowing fire,
he frosty in desire.
(25, 27–8, 69–70, 68, 75–6, 73, 35–6)