top of page

The Power of Words 

When first presented with the question of how to compare literature and music (more specifically the novel and the aria), a genuine initial reaction would be that they are not quite compatible. These two forms of artistic expression may at first seem to possess greater differences than similarities. While it is clear that these are both arts, meaning that they strive to communicate various aspects of the human experience, the way in which these experiences are communicated is strikingly more different. An aria is performed by a classical singer in the context of the spectacle that is opera. A novel is distributed to individuals who are then given the freedom to enjoy it at their leisure in the privacy of their own homes. As these examples suggest, we encounter these arts in extremely different situations and contexts, and thus they are immediately signified as just that: extremely different. Often, this glaring difference in accessibility and venue can overshadow just how interconnected these fine arts truly are. However, music and literature influence and communicate with each other in meaningful ways that indicate just how closely intertwined they are despite inherent differences. 

 

(Fine) Arts

Author Calvin S. Brown provides precise and specific evidence regarding the similarities between music and literature. Beginning with the basics, when you strip away the functional context of these forms, you are left with two fine arts. Fine arts are separated from the general category of art in the sense that they are art for art’s sake. Unlike architecture or graphic design, both music and literature are used as vessels for exhibiting artistry rather than accomplishing a utilitarian function. A novel, then, can have the same creative purpose as an aria, although the artists are employing a vastly different medium. Both are meant to capture some essence of the human experience and share that with an audience. The creation of the piece (either musical or written) is only half the battle. Once the artist finds herself with a finished product, she must then share the fruits of her labors with another in order to complete the experience for both parties. Novels are only novels once they are read; an opera is only an opera once it is performed on stage. While it is true that an artist can claim they have written the next great American novel or the next hit at the Met, their compositions need audience support in order to actually be considered art. That is the division between art and fine art. It is an equation (pictured on the right) that is not complete until the artist’s work is taken in by someone other than herself and then reflected upon. Once this reflection occurs, the process is complete and the human experiences has been shared.

 

 

Auditory Appeal

Another key similarity is on which sense these arts are attempting their appeal. Many consider the naturally auditory nature of music to be the central reason as to why it is different than literature. However, while it may seem that literature is meant to be read and therefore appeals to sight, it is important to keep in mind the sounds and meanings we associate with words.  The written word is more or less a way to document the sounds that we as humans associate with language. Human beings have attached significance to specific patterns of sounds so that we can communicate effectively with others. Novels are essentially amalgamations of these sounds transcribed on paper. Thus, while we tend to consume them internally and thus soundlessly, literature is just as connected with the realm of the auditory as music. The pitches or notes in a musical piece correspond to a wavelength frequency just as a word corresponds to a certain combination of syllables, as the video the right explains. Both serve as a key or legend so that the reader (of the music or the literature) can effectively navigate the text. Without this auditory component to both music and literature, there would be no way to “read” both art forms and thus no way to derive meaning from it.

 

 

Rhythm

Because both music and literature are classified and defined as auditory arts, they must “have their extension, development, and relationships in time[1].” Therefore, if either the composer or author decides to manipulate and change the sense of time, the entire rhythm of the piece shifts. This is simple in the case of music with the time signature. Placed at the beginning of a piece or at the start of a new section, the time signature tells the performer how long each note is in the context of a piece. Generally, a half note is longer than a quarter note but shorter than a whole note, but not every half note last for the same amount of time. Consider the use of rhythm in the clip to the right from Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Notice how Leoporello speeds up and slows down as the rhythms indicate.

 

Writers of prose and poets achieve this manipulation through the use of stressed and unstressed syllables. Consider this excerpt from Lord Byron’s poem “The Giaour.[2]” “He came, he went like the Simoom/That harbinger of fate and gloom.” Surprisingly, this is a perfect example of iambic meter, or an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. It reads like this: he CAME, he WENT like THE sim-MOOM/that HAR-bing-ER of FATE and GLOOM. You can hear how the pattern of stress and unstressed syllables shifts throughout the poem in the video to the right. By choosing specific words in a specific order, the poet/author can manipulate the sense of rhythm in the piece and achieve a similar effect that the composer’s use of time signature has on a piece. Thus, rhythm is an element that can be similarly molded in the composition of both prose and music.

 

 

Timbre

These connections between pitch and rhythm in both prose and musical compositions open the door to the potential of using a variety of elements and techniques that would typically be associated with music in literature. Authors and musicians alike are able to use the concept of timbre in order to feed their larger purpose. Timbre, or the mathematical relationship of overtones, makes speech intelligible[3]. Consult the video to the right for further explanation. We can separate the sounds associated with each word and identify it as such. This separation makes it possible to hear “Hello, how are you?” instead of “Hell oh, ho ware you?” or some other absurd combination of syllables. Both instances are composed of actual words, yet one is gibberish and the other is a pleasant greeting. Knowing this, skilled authors are able to give coloring to certain passages, simply by repeating or contrasting the timbre in words[4].

 

 

This translates easily into the world of musical composition and performance. Quite broadly, each instrument produces a specific timbre. Consider the composition by Sergei Prokofiev, “Peter and the Wolf” provided for your listening enjoyment to the right. Following the narration of a children’s story accompanied by an orchestra, this composition features characters as specific instruments[5]. For instance, Peter is represented by strings, the grandfather the bassoon, and the wolf the French horn. Prokofiev uses the tone of each instrument to represent a certain aspect of the character he is attempting to portray, just as every other composer strives to do.

 

But how does the notion of timbre apply to the voice, which is the fulcrum of an aria? Our voices are instruments that produce sound through the vibration of vocal cords. Thus, each one has a distinct timbre or color. In opera, this difference is timbre is best reflected in the tendency of composers to cast baritones or basses (low and deep voices) as villains, damsels in distress as sopranos, and heroic knights as tenors.  Giuseppe Verdi made a very specific casting decision regarding his opera, Rigoletto. Wanting to accentuate the similarities between Monterone and Rigoletto, the two, low-voiced characters in the clip to the right, he chose to cast “the best baritone” as Monterone to imitate the timbre of title character Rigoletto [6]. This specific casting decision reflects not only the importance of timbre, but the ability of an author and musician to manipulate the tone and coloring of their work.

 

 

Performative Functions

Clearly, there are some interesting and meaningful connections between the compositional features of the two arts. While it has been established that many of elements and devices overlap between the creation of both music and literature, this does not yet tackle the question of why audiences still see them as fundamentally different, especially in terms of accessibility. As I have rendered the obvious difference between these two fine arts more or less irrelevant in the terms of composition (the idea of choosing elements based on what sounds good), we are then left to consider why it is that going to the opera is a much less common phenomenon than reading a novel. It is not because authors and composers are fundamentally different individuals with incompatible creative processes, one of which is more or less accessible than the other. It is not because reading music is not as frequently taught as reading prose; you do not need to be able to read music in order to appreciate it. So maybe the answer is that it is not as inaccessible as we think.

The main element that obstructs your average Joe from going to the opera more often is the idea of spectacle. The way in which an individual perceives and consumes both literature and music is fundamentally different, even if the forms themselves are not. Reading is often an action carried out individually. You would read on the train or the bus or the beach, not in a packed auditorium filled with hundreds of other people. Opera, on the other hand is a large-scale spectacle. Getting dressed up to go the theater to partake in an experience that is meant to stun you speechless with breathtaking sights and performances, is simply not something that can occur as regularly as reading a book if it is to be as effective as possible.

 

Opera is a spectacle. It is a combination of the elegance and refinement of classical music and the outrageousness of entertainment. Consider the main feature of every opera that has ever been produced: the characters are singing instead of speaking. You, as an audience member, must be willing to suspend your sense of disbelief as you watch dragons chase princes and a man dressed like a bird meets his perfect mate as the clip to the right will illustrate.  This type of spectacle loses its sheen if you are exposed to it every day the way you are novels, and there lies the gap between these two art forms.

 

Inspiration

Despite these differences, it is clear that literature and music feed one another. Many operas are based on various literary artifacts. Don Giovanni by Mozart has its roots in Don Juan by Gabrielle Tellez. Carmen by Bizet is based off a novel of the same name written by Prosper Mérimée and provided for you on the right. Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo was based off the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, a popular Greek myth that has been written down many times by many different authors. In Deryck Cooke’s book, The Language of Music, the first source of inspiration he cites as the foundation for a composer’s new piece is a work of literature that they found particularly moving. This notion brings us full circle with the connections between music and literature. It can be noted, therefore, that dramtatically setting of vocal music is like framing a picture and putting it on display. The picture already exists and is functional in its own right and context. But, when this raw image is taken, framed with beautiful strips of wood, and placed on a wall somewhere, it adopts another function and context.

 

An author writes a novel because something about the human condition has inspired him or her to want to share that feeling with as many people as possible. A composer, looking for inspiration, finds it in the words of the particular author. He or she is taking the already created image and adds another artist dimenson to it that is entirely of his or her own creations. It is made of the same stuff, but it is something else entirely. This is more or less the Greek rhetorical circle of art in that the creative process finds it way back to the beginning, regardless of the modifications made to the "original" text. 

 

 

The Issue of Translation

One of the more obvious barriers to mass consumption of opera is the fact that it is often in a different language. But this is where the skill of the performer takes center stage. It could be argued that if you have a libretto in front of you and an excellent performer, there should exist no barrier between the audience and complete comprehension. Classical singers face a peculiar issue of being presented with pieces that are often in different languages. French, Italian, German, and even Czech are common languages of opera. G.F Handel's Guilio Cesare was written in Italian, but the video to the right provides an English translation for you as a listener. In fact, non-English operas are far less common than ones in foreign languages. This fact not only erects an obstacle for the performer, but provides insight as to the importance of the text to the music. Based on conversations with student vocalists, there is a high emphasis placed on translating the text in order to learn a piece of music.

 

 In the early 18th century, many Baroque operas featured singers who were focused on showing off their voice rather than conveying the emotion of the text. Many singers would decorate and ornament the original melody to a point where it was unrecognizable. The focus was clearly on the notes and pitches, not the conveying of emotion. In the late 18th century, composer C.W Gluck made it his goal to create productions that saw the music and the words of equal importance[7]. One of these works was Orfeo ed Euridice and the most poignant scene in the opera is provided to the right. The idea behind this being that exceptional singers should now be able to be adequately emotive while singing with breathtaking form, tone, and pitch.

 

Today, pieces are dependent not only upon singing the correct pitches and rhythms, but conveying emotion. An argument could be made that as long as you can pronounce the words and sing the correct pitches, why deal with the hassle of translation at all? According to soprano, Zoe Marie Hart, not only does translating the text augment the process of memorization, but it allows the singer to understand the scene they are in, allowing them to completely become the character they are portraying. It allows for the highest level of emotional commitment to a performance and thus the ability to engage and move the audience, which is the goal. Emotional portrayal in the English aria to your right ("Birdie's Aria" from Blitzsten's Regina) is much more clear cut for English-speaking listeners and performers. However, when the text is written in another language, translation is crucial for a successful performance of a piece. 

 

This fact is the crux that holds these arts together. Without text and without words, the novel and opera would be nonexistent. The words, regardless of what language they were written in, provide the fuel necessary to make a truly human connection between artist and audience. Thus, as Wagner notes in his book titled Opera and Drama, “the poet supplied the composer, and the composer the singer.”[8] Despite fundamental differences, both music and literature are composed of the same elements and written to be consumed. Who knows? Maybe the next time you pick up a novel or see an opera, you too will be inspired to create your own work of art and keep the thread of imagination and creativity alive for years to come.

 

 

 

 

To move to the next room of the exhibit, please click the arrow to your right.

© 2023 by Ralph Ellison

  • Facebook Clean
  • YouTube Clean
  • Twitter Clean
  • Vimeo Clean
  • SoundCloud Clean
bottom of page