<\/p>
T<\/span>h<\/span>ough I call them Mine I know they are not Mine,\u2019 wrote William Blake of his creations. A visionary poet, painter and printmaker, Blake produced bold and mysterious works that have gone on to inspire countless musicians, from Vaughan Williams to Stockhausen to Bob Dylan.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n And thanks to Hubert Parry<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s stirring anthem Jerusalem<\/i>, Blake\u2019s poetry is woven deep into Britain\u2019s national consciousness. In 1935, while planning a Jubilee concert at the Royal Albert Hall<\/a><\/strong>, King George V reportedly declared: \u2018We must have Jerusalem<\/i><\/a><\/strong>. If we don\u2019t, I shall go down to the platform myself and whistle it\u2019. Even now, over 100 years since its composition, Parry\u2019s hymn continues to resound at weddings and funerals, on sports fields and in school halls.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n But Blake\u2019s legacy in music reaches far beyond Parry\u2019s rousing setting, and he remains as complex, relevant and challenging a figure today as during his chequered lifetime. \u2018<\/span><\/p>\n Blake has come to represent the idea of inner vision, where the artist expresses this vision not in the service of a patron,\u2019 explains Martin Myrone, one of the exhibition\u2019s curators, \u2018and this is why it remains important to think about him. Blake is creative freedom crystallised.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n William Blake was born in London in 1757. Unlike many well-known writers of his day, he was from a family of moderate means. His father was a hosier and the head-strong young Blake only briefly attended school before continuing his studies with his mother at home. Free to roam the streets of London and surrounding countryside as a child, Blake began to experience celestial visions, purportedly seeing the face of God at a window and \u2018a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n After a brief stint at drawing school, he took up an apprenticeship as an engraver then enrolled for a time at the Royal Academy, before eking out a career as an engraver and illustrator. But, as Myrone explains, this occupation was very much \u2018just the day job\u2026 in the evenings Blake would paint, then he might wake up in the middle of the night and write 30 lines of poetry.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n Working in the cracks of his professional life, Blake produced a radical and beautiful body of work, including the exquisitely illustrated poetry collection Songs of Innocence and of Experience<\/i> (1794), which has stood as a vibrant source of inspiration for generations of composers.<\/span><\/p>\n In the 1980s, reference librarian Donald Fitch set about cataloguing every single musical setting of Blake\u2019s text he could lay his hands on in a hefty bibliography. Blake Set to Music <\/i>runs to over 300 pages and contains 1,412 entries, from single song settings to lengthy cantatas<\/a><\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n Over 250 settings of The Lamb <\/i>are included (\u2018others seem to turn up every month\u2019) while Fitch also notes, with a certain wry surprise, that \u2018Denmark since the war has been a veritable hothouse of Blake interest\u2019. But what has made Blake\u2019s poetry such an enduring favourite among composers? <\/span><\/p>\n Myrone points out that Blake has long been held as \u2018the archetype of the creative artist\u2019. He is a compelling embodiment of imagination, integrity and radicalism, whose poetry conjures wildly vivid images and irresistibly powerful emotions. And the surface-level \u2018simplicity\u2019 of his texts belies their rich complexity. Without question, Blake is an artist of beguiling power.<\/span><\/p>\n Less well-known, however, is the fact that Blake was also a gifted musician. As he himself put it, throughout his life he pursued the three vocations of \u2018Poet, Painter & Musician as the Inspiration comes\u2019. <\/span><\/p>\n He was, in Myrone\u2019s words, one of the earliest \u2018trans-media\u2019 artists. Intriguingly, Blake\u2019s house (now demolished and replaced by a \u2018very un-Blakean tower block\u2019) was situated on Broad (now Broadwick) Street, London\u2019s home to piano and harpsichord<\/a><\/strong>-makers including renowned craftsmen Frederick Beck and Christopher Ganer. <\/span><\/p>\n How far this musical backdrop might have shaped Blake\u2019s work is tricky to say, but he certainly made something of a musical name for himself at certain literary salons. One attendee described how \u2018I have often heard [Blake] read and sing several of his poems. He was listened to by the company with profound silence, and allowed by most of the visitors to possess original and extraordinary merit.\u2019 Sadly, the melodies Blake composed did not survive beyond his death, but the musicality that infuses his writing is surely a component of his popularity among composers.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> It was not until the 20th century, however, that composers really started getting excited about Blake. The publication of Alexander Gilchrist\u2019s biography The Life of William Blake<\/i><\/a><\/strong> in 1863 brought the artist to wider public attention, but the turn of the century marked a new rush of enthusiasm. <\/span><\/p>\n As historian Keri Davies notes, \u2018in 1900 the trickle of new musical settings of Blake\u2019s poetry becomes a flood.\u2019 The new century marked a profound transformation in British cultural values, where composers began to explore the possibility of music as an agent of societal change. In turn, the uncompromising spirit of Blake\u2019s poetry, written amid a period of tumultuous political and economic upheaval, became a fresh source of inspiration for British composers.<\/span><\/p>\n Certainly the most enduring musical setting of Blake\u2019s poetry, Parry\u2019s Jerusalem, <\/i>is a potent symbol of music\u2019s political potential. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n The origins of Britain\u2019s \u2018alternative national anthem\u2019 are knottier than might be expected, however. In 1916, the poet laureate Robert Bridges asked Parry to compose a piece \u2018that an audience could take up and join in\u2019 at a concert in support of the \u2018Fight for Right\u2019 movement, which hoped to boost support for the First World War<\/a><\/strong> in the UK. <\/span><\/p>\n Bridges proposed a section of Blake\u2019s epic poem Milton<\/i> as the text. Parry was sceptical about such a nationalistic cause, but duly composed a song for unison voices and organ, handing it over to the conductor Henry Walford Davies with the words \u2018Here\u2019s a tune for you, old chap. Do what you like with it.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The anthem was a resounding success, but Parry grew increasingly uneasy and eventually withdrew his support from the \u2018Fight for Right\u2019 cause. It seemed the song might be withdrawn too, until Parry was approached by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, a leader of the Women\u2019s Movement, requesting if Jerusalem<\/i> might become the Women Voters\u2019 Hymn. Parry promptly responded: \u2018I wish indeed it might become the Women Voters\u2019 Hymn as you suggest. People seem to enjoy singing it. And having the vote ought to diffuse a good deal of joy too. So they would combine happily.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Jerusalem<\/i> has since stood as an emblem of both political left and right: it has been the anthem of the Women\u2019s Institute since 1924, was included in a leaflet titled Socialist Singers and So\u00adcialist Songs<\/i> by the Labour Party in 1932 (along with an application to join the Labour Party) and is of course now firmly associated with various brands of flag-waving national pride. On this last matter, it seems Parry would not have been much pleased.<\/span><\/p>\n Other celebrated 20th-century settings of Blake abound. One of Vaughan Williams\u2019s final works, Ten Blake Songs<\/i> (1957), was composed for the 1958 film The Vision of William Blake <\/i>and sets poems from the Songs of Innocence and of Experience <\/i>and a passage from the poet\u2019s notebook. Scored for voice and oboe, the songs move between the tender, the stern and transcendent.<\/span><\/p>\n Oh! Sunflower <\/i>is, for example, a wonderful evocation of Blake\u2019s mysticism in its surging, lyrical lines for the duo. Yet for all the work\u2019s power, Vaughan Williams<\/a> <\/strong>was himself remarkably caustic about some of Blake\u2019s poetry, remarking on \u2018that horrible little lamb \u2013 a poem that I hate.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n John Tavener<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s choral setting of The Lamb<\/i><\/a><\/strong>, composed in 1982 \u2018from seven notes in an afternoon\u2019, is marked by the composer\u2019s reverence for the poet, however: \u2018Blake\u2019s use of tradition, his \u201cliquid\u201d poetic theology, and the fact that he believed that all traditions and \u201csacred codes\u201d have placed man under a divine order \u2013 this is what has most deeply inspired me about Blake\u2026 He is relevant, precisely because the world today knows nothing of these things.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Britten<\/a><\/strong> was no less awed by Blake\u2019s poetry. He composed his earliest setting, The Nurse\u2019s Song<\/i>, when just a teenager and included The Sick Rose<\/i> in the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings<\/i> (1943), but it was not until his Songs and Proverbs of William Blake<\/i> (1965) that Britten gave his full attention to Blake, declaring \u2018when I think of the wonderful words I feel rather inadequate\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n With texts selected by tenor Peter Pears, the cycle is thick with both sorrow and irony, and includes lengthy, weighty songs and snappy settings of epigrams (\u2018The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship\u2019). The work was composed for baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau<\/a><\/strong> who later recalled how the cycle was completed following the death during childbirth of his first wife, the cellist Irmgard Poppen. Britten\u2019s dedication on the score, \u2018To Dieter \u2013 the past and the future\u2019, suggests a certain oblique reference to this loss.<\/span><\/p>\n As Donald Fitch\u2019s sizeable bibliography attests, summarising the many musical settings of Blake is no easy task. But certain compositions stand out as particularly surprising or notable. America\u2019s avant-garde frequently drew on Blake as a source of inspiration, including Henry Cowell\u2019s Tiger<\/i> (1928) for solo piano, featuring fierce, rapid-fire cluster chords, while George Antheil<\/a><\/strong>, the self-styled \u2018bad boy of music\u2019, composed his extensive Blake setting, Nine Songs of Experience,<\/i> in 1948.<\/span><\/p>\n Stockhausen included a passage of Blake (\u2018He who kisses the joy as it flies\u2026 lives in Eternity\u2019s sunrise\u2019) in his magnificently strange Momente <\/i>for soprano soloist, mixed choirs and ensemble, completed in 1972. A recording of American composer William Bolcom\u2019s evocative setting of Songs of Innocence and of Experience<\/i> (1987) for orchestra, choirs and multiple soloists went on to win four Grammys in 2006 and ranges in style from complex chromaticism to reggae, while Eve Beglarian\u2019s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell<\/i> (1994) sets three of Blake\u2019s proverbs in a score rich with jazz<\/a> <\/strong>and Latin-inspired rhythms. <\/span><\/p>\n Pop musicians have been no less inspired by Blake\u2019s verse. Listen, for instance, to songs by Joni Mitchell, U2 and Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden fame), while Norwegian metal band Ulver (\u2018Wolves\u2019) recorded almost the complete text of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell <\/i>as a double album in 1998.<\/span><\/p>\n Blake\u2019s legacy in the world of music is extraordinarily rich, and it is perhaps fitting that his final moments were spent in a rapture of music and poetry. An account by close friend Frederick Tatham claims, \u2018he began to sing Hallelujahs & songs of joy & Triumph which Mrs. Blake described as being truly sublime in music & in Verse. He sang loudly & with true ecstatic energy and seemed so happy that he had finished his course.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Both a literary and visual work of art, William Blake\u2019s extraordinary Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) sits among his most celebrated works.<\/p>\n The collection appeared in two phases: Blake published his Songs of Innocence in 1789 as a freestanding book of 19 illuminated poems that explore the sweetness of childhood, before five years later adding a further 26 poems titled Songs of Experience.<\/p>\n These later poems delve into the bitterness, repression and vice that Blake felt to pervade modern society, and the combined work was hence published under the title Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.<\/p>\n Each poem is brief and deceptively simple, echoing the singsong rhythms and rhymes of popular 18th-century children\u2019s verse. Yet these poems are infinitely more radical than their form suggests. They are rich in ambiguity, astonishingly imaginative and underpinned by Blake\u2019s radical and uncompromising views on human nature and the contemporary world.<\/p>\n The collection condemns the repressive authority of church and state, celebrates sexual freedom and addresses the horrors of racial inequality and child labour, to remain a fearless, luminous and powerful work of art.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> <\/body><\/html>\n By Kate Wakeling Published: Monday, 09 January 2023 at 12:00 am Though I call them Mine I know they are not Mine,\u2019 wrote William Blake of his creations. A visionary poet, painter and printmaker, Blake produced bold and mysterious works that have gone on to inspire countless musicians, from Vaughan Williams to Stockhausen to Bob […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23273,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"10"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/01\/william-blake-how-his-poetry-inspired-composers-scaled.jpg",1941,2560,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/01\/william-blake-how-his-poetry-inspired-composers-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/01\/william-blake-how-his-poetry-inspired-composers-227x300.jpg",227,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/01\/william-blake-how-his-poetry-inspired-composers-768x1013.jpg",768,1013,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/01\/william-blake-how-his-poetry-inspired-composers-776x1024.jpg",776,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/01\/william-blake-how-his-poetry-inspired-composers-1165x1536.jpg",1165,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2023\/01\/william-blake-how-his-poetry-inspired-composers-1553x2048.jpg",1553,2048,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Kate Wakeling Published: Monday, 09 January 2023 at 12:00 am Though I call them Mine I know they are not Mine,\u2019 wrote William Blake of his creations. A visionary poet, painter and printmaker, Blake produced bold and mysterious works that have gone on to inspire countless musicians, from Vaughan Williams to Stockhausen to Bob…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/23272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is William Blake\u2019s most famous poem?<\/h2>\n
When was William Blake born?<\/h2>\n
Was William Blake an artist as well as poet?<\/h2>\n
Was Blake musical?<\/h2>\n
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Which composers were inspired by Blake\u2019s poetry?<\/h2>\n
William Blake\u2019s best poems<\/h4>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"