Classical Music
Leon Botstein, conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra—which presented a program of "Tales From Edgar Allan Poe" in 1999—noted that in the realm of classical music, as in literature, Poe's influence was felt more deeply in Andre Caplet's Conte fantastique for harp and strings, published in 1924 but begun at least as early as 1909, in a musical retelling of "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym".
Rachmaninoff's choral symphony The Bells set Poe's poem (or at least a Russian translation) to music.
Other operas based on stories by Poe are Ligeia, a 1994 opera by Augusta Read Thomas, and The Tell-Tale Heart by Bruce Adolphe. A ballet based on a story by Poe is Hop-Frog, a 2009 ballet by Terry Brown with fifty minutes running time.
The contemporary Greek composer Dionysis Boukouvalas has set to music Poe's poem To Zante, for soprano and piano.
In 2001 Dutch composer Robert Weirauch composed a short song cycle for baritone and piano, E.A. Poe Songs, consisting of Evening Star, Lenore and Annabel Lee.
Swedish composer Fredrik Klingwall released in 2009 nine piano pieces, each one inspired by one of Poe's poems in a collection called Works of Woe.
American composer, Emma Lou Diemer, set "A Dream Within A Dream" and "Eldorado" for mixed chorus and piano. These works were published by Hinshaw Music, Inc. in 2001. Daron Hagen included settings of "A Dream Within a Dream" and "Thou Wouldst Be Loved" in the 1983 song cycle "Echo's Songs", published by E.C. Schirmer. Leonard Bernstein set "Israfel" as part of his song cycle for voices and orchestra, Songfest.
American conductor/composer Leonard Slatkin has composed a setting of "The Raven" for narrator and symphony orchestra. A lesser-known American composer, Edgar Stillman Kelley (1857–1944) wrote a piece for orchestra entitled "The Pit and the Pendulum".
Russian composer Nikita Koshkin wrote the 1984 piece Usher Valse (Usher Waltz) for solo guitar, depicting Usher's frenzied guitar performance in the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher". The Usher Waltz has been recorded by John Williams and Elena Papandreou.
Iowa composer, James Poulsen, composed "Five Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" for medium high voice and piano in 1986. The song cycle was orchestrated in 1998 with a commission from Jack and Dawn Taylor of Des Moines, Iowa. The Des Moines Symphony premiered the work in 1999 with Robin Roewe, tenor. The poems in the set are: 'Alone', 'Evening Star', Hymn', 'A Dream', and 'To One in Paradise.' Poulsen has also set a letter of Poe, a letter of Maria Clemm, and the valentine poem of Virginia Poe to music.
Read more about this topic: Edgar Allan Poe And Music
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