Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known

December 03, 2008 | |

I'm writing a Symphony for Chorus in short to try and get money for college. I should have started 5 months ago but yesterday I embarked, and since I long ago said I'd never write lyrics again I needed to find some poetry. I decided on William Wordsworth's 5 "Lucy Poems". One nice thing about putting the poetry to music is that you memorize the poetry by accident. Check this out:

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.

My initial thought was that Billy Wordsworth was wispering sweet nothings in his lover's ear about the shiver's she sends up his spine. But I'd contend that it is really much deeper than that. "Strange fits of passion" can be read as the moments when love of God overwhelms the soul and all you can do is shout "God is awesome". And "the Lover" can also be thought of as God, who unceasingly loves perfectly. So you have 4 things he can be saying then (pardon the ineloquent language):

1) I tell her how great she is
2) I tell God she is great
3) I tell her how great God is
4) I tell God how great God is

I think the 4 lines encompass all 4 interpretations. Wordsworth and Lucy (if she ever existed) aren't just a lustful grouping. To Wordsworth (and probobly only in Wordsworth's at this point slightly irrational mind), Lucy parallels the divine. The passionate response to God that comes in private prayer is paralleled with the response that company with Lucy brings. And Wordsworth is seemingly humbled (and embarrassed) by both. He only says how perfect the Lucy/God parallel is in life to one of them, and in the poem only under the ambiguous term "Lover".

I'm semi-neglecting the other 6/7ths of the poem right now. But can words even describe how incredibly better a Lucy that parallels the divine is than a Lucy that parallels a English Romantic wench?

2 comments:

Good Thunder said...

What instruments are you using?? Just choir? Dang I'd like to hear this. I'm working on a composition right now about walking in the woods- cept its- really abstract. It's a mix between Stockhausen and John Cage (yeeha 20th century!!). It's for my enviromental studies-art-history class. I actually kindof like it. I took a few sections from Emerson's "Nature" and looped them. It's so excitng to have friends who compose.

Tony Pistilli said...

I'll probobly stick to just choir honestly because it's easy. Voice ranges are a lot easier to pick up on than all the complexities of instruments. Sometimes I'll play a piece and just know that whoever wrote it never played a saxophone, so I don't want to do that. And I know nothing about orchestration...

I love looping! I was going to get a looping pedal a few months ago but I learned they were ridiculously expensive. A local guy Martin Dosh is all about looping. He records a drum beat, and then just adds and adds stuff over that. Lets you actually think about what's happening rather than it passing. Looping is too cool!

I wish I knew more about composing...