Abstract

This study examines the relationship between language and music and the set of problems related to composing music with a given text. The paper discusses some of the significant features of "Sonnet VIII" by William Shakespeare---structural, semantic, syntactic, phonemic and metrical---and points out their realization in a work by Stravinsky and in my own composition. By analyzing and comparing different compositions which are derived from the same poem, it is possible to gain insight into each composer's compositional process through their various interpretations of the form, meter, logic and sound structure of the text. This paper shows how each composer reflects these parameters differently in the musical setting of the text