On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 02:40:11 -0500, Christopher Booth wrote:
 
> I was in
>college at the time, and had spent some time obssessed with classical piano
>and performance, and felt that the same standards should be applied to
>poetry. So I memorized Canto I, developed my interpretation, and when I went
>home I "performed"
 
I aggree so much with this approach - you understand so much more when
you've made the sounds echo in your own head. Of course, no single
"performance" may definitively carry everything from the score (or so
I had to believe during my own shambling musical career!) but all may
be instructive. To perform is to take choices. Even Pound's
later-in-life recordings, when his voice was obviously past its prime,
carry rhythmic and tonal sense which - to my mind - is more valuable
than the highly mannered (if "correct") realisation of Canto 1 which
we've been discussing.
 
>[I just can't
>imagine Canto I in an uninflected conversational tone 
 
- but the recording of Mauberley - made at the same time as the Canto
1 recording - does do something significantly different with the
"grand manner" - i.e. it heightens it into almost-parody. So that, to
my ears, a poetry which could handle a bit of conversational
flexibility is intoned, a la Yeats and then some... Even though I
agree with all the quality of the Canto 1 recording which Chris Booth
presents, it's that moment when the inflexibility of the earlier style
passes that particularly interests me.
 
>Bunting...
 
- polite plug: in January Bloodaxe Books will publish a new
(centenary) ed. of B's Complete Poems, accompanied by a 2-vol tape
compilation of yer man reading his work. For anyone who can't wait,
there's a 7-vol tapeset available from Richard Swigg, English Dept,
University of Keele. But this doesn't let anyone off from sounding the
poems themselves... 
 
>It is also true that few composers are good performers of their own work,
 
- I'll offer Ben Britten as a contrary example here, whilst not
disputing the general point. At many of the poetry readings I've
organised, The Poet has so significantly mismanaged the sound of
his/her own work as to put me right off it... and I recall, way back,
having to ask Philip Larkin, via his secretary, to read for us: "Oh
no," I was told "Mr. Larkin NEVER gives readings." To which I replied,
Oh good, as I hung up the phone...
 
> The exquisite delicate rarified beauty of the
>Drafts and Fragments, the haunting music of the Pisan Cantos, the perfection
>of _In the Station of the Metro_, the rocky jagged berglike textures of _The
>Seafarer_; what happens when they are brought to life in the air, in EP's
>voice, or others'? 
 
- I'll - predictably - second this concern. I'd note that poetry
recording - tho increasing - is still rare, and that public poetry
reading didn't really take off (in the UK, certainly) until the 60's,
and that for most people in a learning situation poetry is still
page-poetry, even when the poet has stressed the importance of "music"
at one level or another in his/her work. Quoth BB: "Reading in silence
is the source of half the misconceptions that have caused the public
to distrust poetry." And as more and more poets become able to record,
it's important to remember that we don't have to view their versions
as definative to the exclusion of others: it's important - to me -
that we regain the art of reading the things aloud for ourselves.
 
I think it should be possible to trace (tentatively) a provisional
descent of poetry reading style running roughly Yeats > Pound >
Bunting, and on to some of the younger UK poets. Gathering the
evidence is not as simple as one might think, and tho I've heard  many
recordings of Pound (for instance) gathering accurate ascriptions for
them (many have been - uh - "informally loaned" by friends) can be a
nightmare. Noting the exemplary edition of Schwerner's The Tablets
from NPF, with CD selection inside back cover, could we press for a
remastered CD selection of EP reading to accompany future publication
of the Cantos?
 
Thanks for all the responses to this thread - I too think it's
important, and value everyone's take on it. 'Pologies for lengthy
post.
 
RC