Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

What I wanted to do was write musical settings for the spoken word, which would allow both arts (poetry and music) to exist harmoniously, supplementing each other in a perfect organism. In order to achieve this, I treat the spoken word just like the vocal part of a song, and with the same inner relation to the accompaniment as it exists in songs or in operas, so that the music really dramatizes the meaning of the words. When I write down these 'spoken songs', I indicate exactly the rhythm of the recitation, the value of each syllable, the dynamics (piano and forte), the expression, the rising and falling of the voice. In other words, the spoken word becomes part of the musical composition. Kurt Weill