Thanks for this information, it is quite helpful. I was not aware of the Pound Opera, presumably, since it is unpublished, it is also unperformed. Is it ready for performance, or unifinished? Finally, did he build it around the sestina? I will certainly check your article and the texts you've mentioned (these same for others who have posted concerning this point) As to minimalism, as a composer, when you work with verse, you find that the more complex a meter is the less room you have for melodic variation--in that sense, minimalism is the most prudent choice--otherwise you end up with CATS-- The Balkan epic singers use brief, repeating melodies that can cover as little as a fourth--and this, as much as the current wave of minimalist thought, has guided me. I am currently experimenting with some parts of an English translation of Commedia,and, if any of you are skeptical, I invite you to pick up your portable Dante and just try and sing a few lines. Ted "s.j. adams" wrote: > > I've done quite a bit of work in this area, so I can point you in a few > directions. EP's work on Arnaut Daniel was early. He did find the two > extant Daniel melodies (though they had previously been published by a > scholar named Restori), and he used them in a collection of nine > troubadour songs, composed by his friend Walter Rummel, called _Hesternae > Rosae_. > > Pound's ideas about music for poetry are scattered. The obvious place to > begin is _EP and Music_, edited by Murray Schafer, and there is an > important essay on music in the "I Gather the Limbs of Osiris" sequence. > There are also the recordings of EP's opera _Testament of Francois Villon_ > (the score is unpublished--MS at the Beinecke at Yale). > > It's interesting that you mention minimalism, since EP's ideas and the > music he composed are certainly minimalist. In a different way, George > Antheil's experimental music of the 1920s stands in the historical line > that points to the so-called minimalism of recent years (Glass, Adams, > Riley, Part et al). You may be interested in my recent article on the > music of Pound's operas in _Literary Modernism and the Occult Tradition_, > edited by Leon Surette & Demetres Tryphonopoulos. > > Stephen Adams > Department of English > University of Western Ontario > London, Canada N6A-3K7 > [log in to unmask] > > ______________________________________________________ Get your free web-based email at http://www.xoom.com Special clipart offer: http://orders.xoom.com/email