Author Archives
Michael Craske researches transgressive poetics, music, aesthetics, and perhaps transgressive anything at Queen Mary, University of London (but mainly Swinburne, Wagner, and T. S. Eliot). He was once involved in diplomacy, of a Middle Eastern kind...
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Song, scandal, and a princess: We are not Sure of Sorrow (1898)
When I started this project, I would not have imagined Swinburne’s languid ‘The Garden of Proserpine’ from Poems and Ballads, First Series (1866) ever inspiring popular music, and certainly not the tone of this piece by Charles Paston-Cooper (1867-1941). Weary… Read More ›
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Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain Conference, 2017
Glad to say that along with the other members of the Sounding Victorian consortium, I’m going to be talking about my research and the project at the Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain Conference at the University of Birmingham next week!
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‘East to West’ by Charles Villiers Stanford (1893)
By far the most complex recreation I’ve attempted, this is a section of a setting by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) of Swinburne’s ‘East to West’. The lyrics were commissioned by Stanford for the ‘Chicago World’s Fair’ or the ‘Chicago Columbian… Read More ›
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Sounding Victorian
The School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, has published a blog post about this site and the consortium that it’s to become part of, Sounding Victorian. To read this post on AllthingsSED, please click the image… Read More ›
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‘The Hounds of Spring’
Muriel Elliot’s setting of Swinburne’s ‘When the Hounds of Spring’ from his Greek tragedy Atalanta in Calydon (1865), must have been hugely dramatic in performance, and not least at its premiere in the extraordinary venue of the Crystal Palace in 1906. The… Read More ›
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My Love, Mine Own, 1880
While I appear to have broken my rule about only including music set to Swinburne lyrics, this really is a special case. The lyrics were clearly inspired by Swinburne, and – as I can find no clue as to where they have… Read More ›
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Küss’ ich ihr Haar (1912)
This terrific adaption of Swinburne’s ‘Kissing Her Hair‘ is by Kurt Schindler (1882-1935). Dramatically different to the previous adaption of the poem I shared – the first-ever piece of music to be inspired by Swinburne’s verse – this beautifully textured song is wistful, reflective,… Read More ›
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Félise, 1878
This strange and slightly drunk waltz by Theophilus Marzials feels apt for the Swinburne poem from which he took the words – ‘Félise’, from Poems and Ballads, First Series (1866). It’s a poem about the ending of an affair, though… Read More ›
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A Match, 1880
This is a great rendition of Swinburne’s ‘A Match’ from Poems and Ballads, First Series (1866), by Louis Napoleon Parker (1852-1944). It manages to be sweetly melodic, dramatic and rousing at the same time, with a twist at the line,… Read More ›
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Rondel – Kissing her Hair
This was the first piece of music to be inspired by one of Swinburne’s poems. From 1867, Walter Maynard’s Kissing Her Hair takes its name from the first line of Swinburne’s ‘Rondel‘, from Poems and Ballads (1866). Maynard was the pseudonym of Thomas W. Beale (1828-1894), a… Read More ›
