American poets inspire this Renaissance man
Robert Frost - John Townsend Trowbridge - Emily Dickinson - Walt Whitman
About his work Sprenkle said, "I put myself in the right mode, I get ideas. Once I have a musical idea it doesn't vanish. I work it out from beginning to end as scraps in my head and on the piano. Then I sit down and in one burst, three or four hours a day, I write it. That's the burdensome part. I put 'Birches' down in September and October. It's the best one I've done in awhile, the tightest."
'Birches' 50 pages, more than 1,000 bars and about 30 minutes long, is the latest Sprenkle piece inspired by an American writer. Emily Dickinson poems prompted a memorable musical tableau."
Sprenkle said, "I think in American arts and letters, a running thread is the very direct, straightforward speech. Poets like Frost and Dickinson remind me of what Auden said: Take common words and say uncommon things."
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Above notes from " American Poets Inspire this Renaissance Man" March 07, 1991 | By Ernest F. Imhoff, Evening Sun Staff
Robert Frost - John Townsend Trowbridge - Emily Dickinson - Walt Whitman
About his work Sprenkle said, "I put myself in the right mode, I get ideas. Once I have a musical idea it doesn't vanish. I work it out from beginning to end as scraps in my head and on the piano. Then I sit down and in one burst, three or four hours a day, I write it. That's the burdensome part. I put 'Birches' down in September and October. It's the best one I've done in awhile, the tightest."
'Birches' 50 pages, more than 1,000 bars and about 30 minutes long, is the latest Sprenkle piece inspired by an American writer. Emily Dickinson poems prompted a memorable musical tableau."
Sprenkle said, "I think in American arts and letters, a running thread is the very direct, straightforward speech. Poets like Frost and Dickinson remind me of what Auden said: Take common words and say uncommon things."
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Above notes from " American Poets Inspire this Renaissance Man" March 07, 1991 | By Ernest F. Imhoff, Evening Sun Staff