Lawrence Set to Music

This chapter considers a number of ways in which musical composers have engaged with and assimilated Lawrence’s poetry (as well as some of his other works and, indeed, his life story), over a 100-year period. Foregrounding texts selected for musical setting, the chapter begins with an analysis of sound, silence, rhythm, repetition and movement in Lawrence’s verse. Subsequently, it explores the various strategies adopted by composers when setting these poems to music. Some create a song from a single poem; some compose song-cycles by combining poems from within a single collection, such as Birds, Beasts and Flowers. Others juxtapose poems from across a range of Lawrence’s verse-books – or combine Lawrence poems with those of other poets. This chapter explores the implications of such choices, offering analyses of musical compositions in which words and sounds have been creatively combined. Composers discussed include Peter Warlock, Benjamin Britten and Arnold Cooke, alongside a number of lesser-known contemporary figures, whose works (spanning a number of genres) bring Lawrence to a new generation.