Samuel Barber's Use of the Texts of James Joyce.

Abstract

Samuel Barber, one of the most respected composers of American twentieth-century art song composed nine songs to texts written by Irish authors James Joyce. Due to the complex nature of Joyce's writing, performers of these songs often find it difficult to understand the events or emotions in the song texts. Barber once said of this piece "Nuvoletta," which is set to text from Joyce's "Finnegans Wake," that at some point he had to set the text abstractly because it was impossible to know what it meant. Inspired by this admission, I have completed an in-depth musical analysis of Barber's song and his setting of Joyce's text.