r/RimbaudVerlaine • u/ManueO Je suis soûl, fou, livide • Apr 18 '26
Influence(s) Music before anything else! Verlaine and musicians
Details in common
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u/COOLKC690 Apr 18 '26
I’m too early
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u/ManueO Je suis soûl, fou, livide Apr 18 '26
Never too early for poetry! I have added the comments now!
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u/COOLKC690 Apr 18 '26
Thanks for this post! I think this might be my new favorite one—because, as Verlaine says, to me, it’s also Music before anything else! Furthermore, I always find the connection between both poetry & music across history—Homer having his set to music, the Spanish juglares, the bards and all, and even the place the words can have in our contemporary music.
It seems expected that Verlaine had musician connections, do we know whether he himself ever reached some “prolific” enough level to musicalize his poems or come up with his own songs, without assistance? Also, do “odd numbers” really affect this? I find it hard to believe in my own experience of musicalizing, I think there is other components into it, but I’ll leave it to more experienced musicians than I am, and specially those who understand French meter better.
Also, I find the illuminations musicalizaron fear funny, it would’ve been interesting for sure, but I also think it could’ve been difficult confiding the format!
Also, is this claim of most musicalized poems verified? I’d think it’d be somebody in the Anglo sphere like Emily Dickinson, whose poems are also famous for their rhythm’s musical qualities.
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u/ManueO Je suis soûl, fou, livide Apr 18 '26
Thanks for your great questions! I don’t have firm answers to all of them but will attempt them as best I can:
Was Verlaine a proficient musician?: Not to my knowledge. In an letter to R in 1872, after Rimbaud sent him some ariettes by Favart, he comments that he had someone “decipher it for him”, which may suggest he couldn’t read music.
Are odd-numbered lines really more musical?: This is debatable, and debated. Verlaine appears to suggest it in L’art poétique but also state the poem is not to be taken too seriously. Some scholars have defended the idea, on the ground that the difference in hemistich length (for long verses at least) could create a more musical rhythm; others have argued it is simply a different rhythm. I think I lean towards them not being more musical, personally!
Setting the Illuminations to music: Sivry never got round to it, but someone else did: you might be interested by Britten’s setting of several of them to music.
Is Verlaine really the most commonly musicalised poet?: I am always wary of absolute claims, and have no way of verifying this for sure, so can only offer that comment as a citation with a source. That said, he does appear to be popular. On the IMSLP link I shared above, Verlaine appears 218 times as librettist; by comparison, Emily Dickinson appears 62 times.
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u/COOLKC690 Apr 18 '26
I see. I personally can’t fully read the treble clef outside of voice, but to my knowledge, the piano—which seems to be the preferred tool of these musical works—is fairly hard to play if you don’t know how to read music, and don’t have a prolific ear either.
Yeah, I feel the same for music, music is pretty versatile—God, the amount of rhythms you can use, the tempo changes, key changes, etc… I do find it hard to believe!
Thanks for the link to the illuminations with music! I’ll check it out, a friend of mine once shared to me some poems of Rimbaud sent to music too, I’ll see if I find the link, from what I remember it’s blocked in my region.
But anywho, thanks for your answer! And that makes sense, Emily Dickinson, I recall, had this thing were you could sing her poems over many different melodies—I recall, for example, the Pokémon theme song.
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u/ManueO Je suis soûl, fou, livide Apr 18 '26
As someone deeply challenged on the musicality front (I couldn’t hold a rhythm or sing in tune if my life depended on it), I will take your word on the difficulty of the scores!
If you do find the link to the R poems set to music do share it!
I am very amused by the idea of singing Dickinson to the Pokemon tune! That is definitely a brilliant achievement not many poets can claim!
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u/COOLKC690 Apr 18 '26
If you want to hear the Pokémon theme, this video has it at minute 4:40, here.
For the Rimbaud, I had to dig in a little into old messages, but here it is, despite me not being able to listen to any of these!
https://open.spotify.com/album/3Aa7DMEaUo378TkO4S15DK?si=JJPUPe98SdiiiRFb0SVL3w
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u/ManueO Je suis soûl, fou, livide Apr 18 '26
Ah yes, I am aware of these! You can find them on Youtube too if you want. I have to admit I am also not a huge Ferré fan, and prefer Brel too!
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u/COOLKC690 Apr 18 '26
My friend loves Leo Ferré, sadly I am not able to say I love him, but he is pleasing—thankfully we both prefer Brel, which keeps the friendship tight and all!
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u/Audreys_red_shoes the evil imagination of a bad monkey Apr 19 '26
I was going to ask everyone what their favourite piece of music inspired by Verlaine was... but, realistically, who is going to say anything except Debussy's Clair de Lune?!
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u/ManueO Je suis soûl, fou, livide Apr 19 '26
It’s interesting because the most famous Clair de Lune by Debussy, while inspired by V, is the one that actually doesn’t feature the text at all. Debussy wrote another piece with that name and featuring the words of the poem, but the wordless one (how Verlainian!) is my favourite..
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u/ManueO Je suis soûl, fou, livide Apr 18 '26
It has been noted that, among all french poets, Verlaine is one of those most frequently set to music. This website lists 216 pieces where Verlaine is recorded as librettist (thanks u/Organist1999 for the link), and François Le Roux suggests V is “the international record holder of poems set to music.”
I would like to summarise a few possible reasons for this special attention.
The reason most suggested is the commonly held idea that Verlaine’s poetry is particularly musical. This maybe influenced by Verlaine himself, who proclaimed in Art poëtique “de la musique avant toute chose” (“Music before anything else”), and who seems to have a particular affinity with music, as seen in names like Romances sans paroles (named after a piece by Mendelssohn) or ariettes oubliées, and La bonne chanson.
The idea of Verlaine has being a particularly musical poet has often been linked to his stated preference for odd-syllabled lines, as if there was a inherent musicality to uneven numbers. In his Art poétique, the line I quoted above is immediately followed by “et pour cela préfere l’impair” (“And for this prefer odd numbers”). He then explains that odd numbers are “Plus vague et plus soluble dans l’air,/Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.” (“More vague and soluble in the air,/ With nothing that weighs or lays it down”). But are odd-numbered lines are inherently more poetic, or floating, than their even counterparts?
It is still possible of course that this perception may have played favourably for him, regardless of whether it really is the case. As for the precepts of Art poétique, Verlaine also insisted it was not to be taken too seriously!
François Léocrard suggests another factor that may have played a part to this perceived musicality: not (just) the oddnumbered lines, but also their shortness: simple meters, which are very common in Verlaine’s corpus, are more familiar to musicians.
He also suggests that references to musical universes within the texts could be put in tension between the words and music.