Word: poem
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AFTER TWO BOOKS of lyric poems, Ruth Whitman, a well-known New England poet, grew tired of the "subjective I." The Passion of Lizzie Borden was Whitman's first poem written from inside another woman. Tamsen Donner; a woman's journey is her second; and a third long poem from the point of view of a woman in the resistance during the Holocaust is underway...
...finally ended in her divorce and her marriage to Wagner in 1869. In celebration of that event, Wagner composed the Siegfried Idyll, which, in its tranquillity and relative simplicity, contrasts sharply with the stereotype of Wagnerian heaviness and turmoil. Unlike his operas, it is modestly scored, an intimate love poem which Wagner never meant to have published. It is, in addition, an immensely difficult piece to perform--the orchestra is required to evoke a tranquil, exalted atmosphere, and then maintain this mood through twenty minutes of technically exacting music...
...form and visits men in every millenium, bringing his spiritual knowledge to earth. Krishna is supposed to have taken the bodily form during the first century A.D. in the village of Braj in North India. He is portrayed as a mischievous lad in The Round Dance of Krishna, a poem by Nanddas written in the 16th century and based on Sanskrit texts. Krishna is chased along the banks of the Jumnu River by 160 women and with an affected reluctance allows them to catch him. While declaring the strength of love, he multiplies himself and makes love...
Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun sets to music Mallarme's L'Apresmidi d'un Faune, a symbolist poem replete with a striking vagueness, fluidity and sense of reverie. A faun--half man, half goat--arises from his sleep near Mount Aetna in Italy and wanders through the woods. The whole image is one of dreamy light and dark, tentativeness and delicacy. The faun chases a group of nymphs up and down the mountain, but ultimately loses them as he once again yields to the soothing oppressiveness of sleep...
...suggested the dance of the faun. Particularly impressive were the excitement and fullness which the whole orchestra achieved as it suggested the faun's anxious chase of the nymphs. The winds, brass and violins showed just the right amount of restraint that Mallarme imparts to the faun in the poem...