Greening (Ed.) - Accompanied Voices

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A terrific anthology

This is a really terrific anthology.  I'm pre-disposed to liking it because classical music is such an important part of my life, but that also means that a bad anthology would make me very grumpy.  Fortunately, I think this is excellent.

The idea is self-explanatory: John Greening has collected poems about composers and their music, with both composers and poets spanning the period from the 16^th century to the present day.  It's a beautifully judged selection, I think, with a wide variety of poems which aren't always the ones you might expect.  This makes it a lovely book to dip into; as with any anthology, I don't like all the poems, but I'm glad to have read them all, some old favourites are here and it has introduced me to some I didn't know and will be going back to again and again, I think.

Just to give a slight flavour of the variety here, among the fine selection of poems on Bach, I was struck by the delightful contrast on finishing Norman MacCaig's powerful Bach for the Cello:

"Passion will scorch deep in these sharp canals: under the level moon desire runs fast, the flesh aches on its string, without consummation,

Without loss."

and then immediately reading the matter-of-fact opening of Rowan Williams' Homage to J.S. Bach:

"It is good just to think about Johann Sebastian Bach grinding away like the mills of God,

producing masterpieces and legitimate children –

Twenty-one in all – and earning his bread."

In short, this is a lovely, varied selection with a very interesting and thoughtful introduction by Greening and I can recommend this wholeheartedly.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)