Not every poem can be easily or beautifully set to music. A few years ago I read Auden’s Christmas Oratorio with great excitement, but it’s not hard to see why Benjamin Britten reneged on his promise to write music for it: I’m pretty sure it would have been longer than The Ring Cycle!
Today I met with a composer friend to kick around my ideas for a song cycle. He had good questions and useful comments, and I’m hopeful that we can continue our discussion even before Orange County announces grant recipients in September. Several of the poems he liked had imagery about or references to music–which perhaps I should have predicted! Thinking about other song cycles I know, I’m estimating about 3 minutes per song.
I think we have a healthy passel of material on love (and its opposite), nature (a la Bryant), family, and grief. Not necessarily in that order.