Music & Poetry

I'm a lover of music, all kinds of music! and today I experienced something quite unique. (well to me anyway!) I went to listen The Brentano String Quartet at the Vancouver Music Academy, I had no idea what the program was ahead of time but had heard the quartet play a wonderous program of Hadyn several years ago.

Today they just blew me away! with their daring and inspiring performance. The program combined the music of Mozart and Webern with poetry. The program was intended to show us how we listen and how we receive music and the spoken word together.

Portions of a poem were spoken before each movement of the piece being played. There were 14 phrasings to the poem which coincided with 14 movements of music. The written poetry was inspired by the music and for me the poetry was unfolding into the musical moments.

The connections and reflections depend upon the perceptions of each individual listener. The program is not for everyone, but I found it to be a wonderful new way to experience music & poetry together.

If you have the opportunity to experience this art form, try it! You might surprize yourself!

A snippet of trivia ~ The Brentano String Quartet is named after Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars believe was Beethoven's mysterious "Immortal Beloved", and to whom he wrote his famous love confession.