Professional paper
Contemporary Musical Settings of Beowulf
Urszula Świątek
orcid.org/0000-0001-8470-0570
Abstract
The centuries-old Beowulf continues to inspire contemporary culture
through a variety of adaptations and reinterpretations. Through its continual
presence in the cultural memory, the poem has also made its way into music.
The aim of this paper is to survey four contemporary musical settings of Beowulf,
i.e. compositions which set the words of the poem in Old English or a PresentDay English translation of the poem. The importance of this overview lies in the
documentation of a phenomenon present in contemporary music: the practice of
setting Old English texts to music. However, the focus of this article are settings
of Beowulf in order to narrow down the discussion.
The settings span from 1925 to the present, and are the following:
Howard Hanson’s “The Lament for Beowulf” (1925), Ezequiel Viñao’s “Beowulf:
Scyld’s Burial” (2009), Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s “Beowulf” (2010), and Benjamin
Bagby’s reconstructed performances of the poem (1987-). A brief discussion of
the concept of cultural memory and (re)interpretation precedes the analyses
of the musical settings. Each setting is examined separately; however, points of
comparison are also noted and discussed. Moreover, each setting is analysed in
an individual manner depending on the settings’ key elements: the fragment of
set text, the ideas, moods, techniques, tones, and rhythms which form the piece.
Contemporary approaches to Beowulf vary greatly. Even in the common
medium of musical setting, the way in which the composers tell the story differs
in choice of form, technique, instrumentation, and overall atmosphere. However,
these are all settings of the same story which has persisted throughout the ages,
and it is worth recording the contemporary perceptions of Beowulf—so as to
sharpen the historical sense of the pastness of the past and its presence.
Keywords
Beowulf, musical setting, reinterpretation, contemporary music, music analysis
Hrčak ID:
255697
URI
Publication date:
13.4.2021.
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