Long Songs You have to love Dana Gioia for what he’s trying to do with the National Endowment for the Arts. Earlier this year, I watched him begin a presentation on the endowment’s budget by reading one of Longfellow’s poems–I think it was that classic of American sententiousness, “Psalm of Life”: Art is long, and Time is fleeting, / And our hearts, though stout and brave, / Still, like muffled drums, are beating / Funeral marches to the grave.
Of course, we all need reminding that our hearts are mostly keeping rhythm for the Grim Reaper, and perhaps budget analysts especially need it–For the soul is dead that slumbers, as Longfellow observes, And things are not what they seem. Still, the audience can’t entirely be blamed for its stolid reaction. Art really can be long–long, long, long–as I found last week when an NEA reception began with a performance of five American art songs.
Why is the setting of poetry to music so dreary? Something there is in poetry that doesn’t want to be lyrics, and every one of the performances sounded like an extended introduction to a Broadway tune–without the tune.
The Europeans, of course, do this better. And yet, German art songs may seem so good to us precisely because they are German: sung in our non-native tongue, where we don’t hear the poetry to the same degree. Robert Hillyer wrote a fine little poem called “Early in the Morning,” Ned Rorem set it to music in a beautiful piece, the singer I heard performed it well–and the result of all this talent was somehow a diminishment. The words matter too much for music, and the music sings too well for the words.
There’s a funny passage in the “Republic” in which Socrates imagines someone demanding that we paint statues’ eyes purple, since purple is the most beautiful color and eyes the most beautiful part of the body. I’ve always thought art songs make the same mistake–which may be why the tradition of American art songs has gone the way of morris dancing and tea-cup painting.
Maybe Longfellow had it backwards: Art can be the fleeting thing, and, man, can time seem long.
–J. Bottum
