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Dr Michael Craske is a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London. He researches transgressive poetics, music, aesthetics, and perhaps transgressive anything (but mainly Swinburne, Wagner, and T. S. Eliot). He was once involved in diplomacy, of a Middle Eastern kind...

  • Küss’ ich ihr Haar (1912)

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    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 ›

  • Félise, 1878

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    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 ›

  • A Match, 1880

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    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 ›

  • Rondel – Kissing her Hair

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    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 ›

  • Ask Nothing More

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    Ask Nothing More, by the unconventional Theophilus Marzials (1850-1920), was a hugely successful song of the 1880s. The lyrics were taken from Swinburne’s ‘The Oblation‘ (Songs Before Sunrise, 1871). Marzials was also a poet, and wrote what has often been claimed as the… Read More ›

  • Atalanta in Calydon

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    This is the overture to the 1906 production of Swinburne’s play Atalanta in Calydon (1865), composed by Muriel Elliot, who published the full score in 1912. Originally performed at the Crystal Palace in South London and the (since demolished) Scala Theatre, it… Read More ›

  • Love Laid His Sleepless Head

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    Composed by Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) to lyrics commissioned from A. C. Swinburne, for John Hollingshead’s 1874 production of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ at the Gaiety Theatre London. It was sung by the character Anne Page (and a chorus of… Read More ›

  • The Triumph of Time

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    Composed by Adela Maddison (a.k.a. Mrs Brunning Maddison, 1862-1929), from Twelve Songs (Op. 9, No. 3), 1895, London: Metzler & Co. This is a really terrific adaption, translation, or perhaps transmutation of Swinburne’s text. Moody, elemental, maybe it’s music that’s playing poetic and… Read More ›