Author: Elizabeth Alden Curtis

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-12-18

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 9780484063234

Excerpt from The Norseman: A Drama in Four Acts The lyrics, which occur in the drama, should be set to an almost purely recitative music, which will in no sense impair the spoken value of the words. We know little of the art of those earliest skalds, or harpers, who told stories in song to the romance-loving, heroic peoples of the antique world, but this much must be certain; that the words, themselves, With all the thrilling, impassioned power of spoken language, must have been clearly intelligible, and unhamp ered by musical embellishment, or the interest of those long. Narrative song-poems could never have been sustained. A vibrant chord - a fiery stanza, differing not much from speech, save, perhaps, in its rhythm, and return, on a last word, to music, as if tethered by a golden thread of melody; a minor plaint, accompanied by an arpeggio undertone; - who can suggest or outline the technique of that lost art of story-telling-ih-song! Of the songs in the present play, only one, the last, seems suited to anything like a modern musical treatment, - a distinct melody, perhaps, and barcarolle rhythm. The others belong, I am sure, to that far-oh day when the singers were the poets, prophets, actors, and historians of the nation, and a song must have had an infinitely fuller significance than any that it holds, to -day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.