James Joyce

James Joyce was a modernist Irish expatriate writer. He is best known for his groundbreaking novels (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake) and for his short stories (Dubliners), but he also published a substantial body of poetry, starting with his first book, Chamber Music.

Photo: James Joyce, ca. 1915, public domain.

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    American composers who have been attracted to Joyce’s style include Samuel Barber, David Del Tredici, David Diamond, Miriam Gideon, Donald Martino, Ben Moore, and Vincent Persichetti.

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    Gardner Read: The Art of Song

    (William Blake, Frances Frost, James Joyce, Gardner Read, Henry Russell, Rabindranath Tagore and Jean Starr Untermeyer)

    1999

    Books

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    John Duke Song Collections

    Composer(s): John Duke

    Find at your local library

    Octaves and Sweet Sounds (High Voice)

    Composer(s): Richard Hundley

    Song(s): 1. Strings in the Earth and Air Text: James Joyce
    2. Seashore Girls Text: E. E. Cummings
    3. Moonlight's Watermelon Text: Jose Garcia Villa
    4. Straightway Beauty On Me Waits Text: James Purdy
    5. Well Welcome Text: Gertrude Stein

    Voice Type: High

    Buy via Boosey & Hawkes

    Octaves and Sweet Sounds (Medium Voice)

    Composer(s): Richard Hundley

    Song(s): 1. Strings in the Earth and Air Text: James Joyce
    2. Seashore Girls Text: E. E. Cummings
    3. Moonlight's Watermelon Text: Jose Garcia Villa
    4. Straightway Beauty On Me Waits Text: James Purdy
    5. Well Welcome Text: Gertrude Stein

    Voice Type: Medium

    Buy via Boosey & Hawkes

    Way of the River

    Composer(s): Robert G. Patterson

    Song(s): 1. from “Sun-Down Poem” (Whitman)
    2. Strings in the Earth and Air (Joyce)
    3. Psalm 65:9-12 (Douay-Rheims)
    4. from “The Elephant's Child” (Kipling)
    5. The Ballad of Poor Susan (Wordsworth) Interlude
    6. The River/Deep River (Teasdale/Anonymous)

    Free via IMSLP

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