Literary Works in Classical Music

My Patreon sponsor for this episode, Adrian, set me a challenge:
The influence of literary works on classical compositions,
exploring pieces inspired by poetry, novels, or plays. He also
asked me to do something else, and I’m going to quote him here:


Also, if I may add something regarding the episode: It is of
course possible to make an episode about the influence of
literature on music by simply doing an overview of different
works that have some obvious attachment to a work of literature.
However, it would be particularly interesting if you could say
something more general or principled (or philosophical, if you
will) about the relation between literature and music. Why do so
many composers write pieces about or inspired by literary works?
Does music based on literary works have any distinguishing
features compared to other music? Does literature add something
to music beyond simply being a subject matter among many possible
subject matters? 


To attempt an answer at Adrian’s last question, I think the
answer is yes, literature(or poetry or theatre) can add something
to music beyond being simply a subject matter. I think this is
the key reason why music based on literary works is so compelling
to us as listeners and why these inspirations have been so
fruitful for composers. Of course, I had dozens of masterpieces
to choose from when deciding which pieces to talk about in a bit
of detail. But in the end, I’ve chosen 5 pieces to discuss today,
3 works based on poetry, and 2 based on a novel. The ways the
composers I’m going to talk about manipulated and molded these
works of literature or poetry into their music is remarkable, and
throughout the show today I’ll try to show you the techniques
they used to do this, whether it’s explicitly trying to depict
images, like in Strauss’ Don Quixote, or whether the music tries
to express some sort of deeper philosophy behind the poems, like
in Mahler’s Das Lied von Der Erde. I hope this episode is as fun
to listen to as it was fun to research and write! Join us!