The Mahindra Humanities Center hosted a WordSong event featuring music inspired by William Butler Yeats' poem "The Second Coming." This unique performance, highlighting works by composers Elena Ruehr, Howard Frazin, and Tom Schnauber, encouraged attendees to engage in discussions about the poem's themes and their relevance today. The event, aimed at fostering understanding between music and words, allowed for deeper appreciation of both artistic expressions. Yeats' imagery, reflecting despair and disconnection from 1919, resonated with the audience, drawing parallels to current societal issues.
"It's difficult to talk about music, but we believe that everybody can," said Schnauber, who founded WordSong with Frazin in 2008. However, the German American composer added: "It is easier to talk about words than about music."
The program began with a reading of Yeats' poem. Its imagery of disconnection and a strange Sphynx-like creature waking as a moment of doom approaches, was written in 1919.
As attendees chimed in about what the poem evoked for them, Schnauber jotted down themes on a white board. They included politics, disenchantment, and blame as well as religion and Einstein.
The WordSong event seeks to bridge the gap in conversing about music and poetry, highlighting the relevancy of Yeats' imagery to contemporary issues.
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