This post continues a discussion of the lyrics used by Aaron Copland in his 12-movement song-cycle, "The Poems of Emily Dickinson for Vocals and Piano."
TO ACCESS PART 1, CLICK HERE. TO ACCESS PART 2, CLICK HERE.
TO ACCESS PART 1, CLICK HERE. TO ACCESS PART 2, CLICK HERE.
I’ve been discussing the lyrics Aaron Copland used in his 12-movement song-cycle “Poems by Emily Dickinson for Vocals and Piano.” His work premiered in 1950 – 5 years before Thomas Johnson’s seminal work from 1955, “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson,” so Copland was using poems from very early publications where the publishers modified (and/or even omitted) Dickinson’s words, lines, stanzas and punctuation.
I’ve covered movements 1 through 6 and 10, so today I have information on movements 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12.
In movement 7, “Sleep is supposed to be,” there are no differences (except, perhaps, in punctuation), so Copland’s lyrics match the poem as it appears in Johnson’s compilation.
In the 8th movement, “When they come back – if Blossoms do,” the 5th line of the poem reads “When they begin, if Robins may,” but Copland has “When they begin, if Robins do.” In line 10, the poem states, “Had nobody a pang,” while Coplands lyrics have “Has,” and in the poem, line 11 uses “lest,” but Copland uses “that.”
Hmm…I could not find info as to an earlier version that had these modifications, but I suspect there must be one. I can’t imagine Copland made these small changes on a whim.
For “I felt a funeral in my brain,” the 9th selection of Copland’s 12, the first four stanzas are exactly the same – EXCEPT – in line 3, Copland added an extra “treading” – and in line 7 he has an extra “beating” – but that could just be the liberty of a song-writer – it’s pretty typical to include repetition like that. However, he was using a version of the poem published in 1896, and the publisher comletely omitted the final – and morst eerie? Most important? – stanza. It reads like this:
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –
I have no idea why they made the decision to omit that entire stanza.
For the most part, the song lyrics in the 11th movement, “Going to Heaven,” match the poem, although Copland repeats the line “Going to Heaven” several times at the beginning and at other times of the song. There are two other minor differences: In line 14, while the poem says “Save just a little space for me,” the song substitutes “place” for “space.” And in the 24th line, the poem uses the contraction “I’m,” while Copland uses “I am.” The “space/place” change seems to come from the 1891 version – though I’m not sure about the “I’m” vs. “I am.”
For the final movement of his 12-song opus, Copland use the title, “The Chariot,” so that let me know right away that he used the poem from the 1890 edition of selected poems by Dickinson – for that was the title the publishers gave “Because I could not stop for death.”
The lyrics are the exact same for the first two stanzas of the poem, but for the third stanza, 1890 version of the poem replaces “At Recess – in the ring” with “Their lessons scarcely done” – and then the early version (and hence the song) omits stanza 4 completely – it moves straight to the fifth stanza which replace “but a mound” for “in the ground,” and “But” in place of “And yet.”
I’ve covered movements 1 through 6 and 10, so today I have information on movements 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12.
In movement 7, “Sleep is supposed to be,” there are no differences (except, perhaps, in punctuation), so Copland’s lyrics match the poem as it appears in Johnson’s compilation.
In the 8th movement, “When they come back – if Blossoms do,” the 5th line of the poem reads “When they begin, if Robins may,” but Copland has “When they begin, if Robins do.” In line 10, the poem states, “Had nobody a pang,” while Coplands lyrics have “Has,” and in the poem, line 11 uses “lest,” but Copland uses “that.”
Hmm…I could not find info as to an earlier version that had these modifications, but I suspect there must be one. I can’t imagine Copland made these small changes on a whim.
For “I felt a funeral in my brain,” the 9th selection of Copland’s 12, the first four stanzas are exactly the same – EXCEPT – in line 3, Copland added an extra “treading” – and in line 7 he has an extra “beating” – but that could just be the liberty of a song-writer – it’s pretty typical to include repetition like that. However, he was using a version of the poem published in 1896, and the publisher comletely omitted the final – and morst eerie? Most important? – stanza. It reads like this:
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –
I have no idea why they made the decision to omit that entire stanza.
For the most part, the song lyrics in the 11th movement, “Going to Heaven,” match the poem, although Copland repeats the line “Going to Heaven” several times at the beginning and at other times of the song. There are two other minor differences: In line 14, while the poem says “Save just a little space for me,” the song substitutes “place” for “space.” And in the 24th line, the poem uses the contraction “I’m,” while Copland uses “I am.” The “space/place” change seems to come from the 1891 version – though I’m not sure about the “I’m” vs. “I am.”
For the final movement of his 12-song opus, Copland use the title, “The Chariot,” so that let me know right away that he used the poem from the 1890 edition of selected poems by Dickinson – for that was the title the publishers gave “Because I could not stop for death.”
The lyrics are the exact same for the first two stanzas of the poem, but for the third stanza, 1890 version of the poem replaces “At Recess – in the ring” with “Their lessons scarcely done” – and then the early version (and hence the song) omits stanza 4 completely – it moves straight to the fifth stanza which replace “but a mound” for “in the ground,” and “But” in place of “And yet.”
Interestingly, Copland marked this song at its start with the direction to play “with quiet grace.” LOL – I composed a song based on this poem, and I wrote my work in the style of a seductive tango. I suppose music, like art, is in the eye – or in this case, the ear – of the beholder.
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