Sorabji Resource Site: Poets Set to Music

Poets Set to Music and Their Translators

This page gives a chronological list of the writers whose texts Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji set to music between 1915 and 1973, specifically 1915-20, 1926, 1927, 1941, 1967, and 1973. It also lists the translators (in italics) whose versions he used. Their years of birth and death and their country of origin are also given, followed by the titles of the resulting works.

Years in italics are uncertain and have this special formatting instead of the abbreviation ca.; unknown dates are replaced by strings of zeros to allow correct sorting. The number in the rightmost column indicates the order in which Sorabji approached the poets, with “0” used to group translators when sorting on this column. The date given between parentheses at the end of the titles in the penultimate column indicates the work in which the composer first set a text by a given poet.

According to Sorabji’s friend Norman Peterkin, “The Influence of Occidental Music on the Orient”, The Musical Times 61, no. 931 (1 September 1920): 605-8; 606, there is a 1915 setting of a text by the French Symbolist poet Albert Victor Samain (1858-1900) would exist. Such a song has not yet been found; it may be located in a private collection, if it exists.

See the English translations of the poems Sorabji set to music, and links to text and audio files for some of the texts he set.

For the Unicode characters needed to represent the letters with diacritics used in the names below, see page Titles of Works Containing Diacritics.

Click on a column heading to sort, then shift-click on other headings to sort on multiple columns.
Surround strings with quotation marks for specific searches. Refresh the page to revert to the initial order.

Name	Birth	Death	Country	Titles	Order
Name	Birth	Death	Country	Titles	Order
Ibrāhīm Mīrzā, Shamsuʾd-Dīn	0000	0000	Persia	Arabesque (1920; 2 pp.)	12
Assisi, St. Francis of	1182	1226	Italy	Benedizione di San Francesco d’Assisi (1973; 2 pp.)	17
Saʿdī, Abū Abdiʾllah Mušarrifuʾd-Dīn Ibn Muṣliḥud-Dīn	1213	1291	Persia	Trois poèmes du “Gulistān” de Saʿdī (1926, rev. 1930; 16 pp.)	14
Gami [recte Ǧāmī], Mawlānā Nūruʾd-Dīn ʿAbduʾr-Raḥmān	1414	1492	Persia	Symphony [no. 2], “Jāmī”, for Large Orchestra, Wordless Chorus, and Baritone Solo (1942-51; 826 pp.)	15
Michelangelo Buonarroti	1475	1564	Italy	Cinque sonetti di Michelagniolo Buonarroti (1923; 40 pp.)	13
Baudelaire, Charles	1821	1867	France	Trois poèmes pour chant et piano (1918, 1919; 9 pp.): “Correspondances” L’irrémédiable (1927; 8 pp.) Trois poèmes (1941; 13 pp.): “Les chats”	10
Mallarmé, Stéphane	1842	1896	France	Apparition (1916; 5 pp.)	5
Verlaine, Paul	1844	1896	France	L’heure exquise (1916; 2 pp.) Trois fêtes galantes de Verlaine (ca. 1919; 11 pp.) Trois poèmes pour chant et piano (1918, 1919; 9 pp.): “Crépuscule du soir mystique”, “Pantomime” Trois poèmes (1941; 13 pp.): “Le faune”, “La dernière fête galante”	4
Rollinat, Maurice	1846	1903	France	L’étang (1917; 2 pp.)	7
Tailhade, Laurent	1854	1919	France	Hymne à Aphrodite (1916; 5 pp.)	6
Gilkin, Iwan	1858	1924	Belgium	Le mauvais jardinier (1918 or 1919; compl. Chappell Kingsland, 2023; 5 pp.)	9
Browne, Edward Granville (translator of Jāmī)	1862	1926	England		0
Régnier, Henri de	1864	1936	France	Chrysilla (1915; 4 pp.)	2
Dowson, Ernest	1867	1900	England	I Was Not Sorrowful—Poem for Voice and Piano [Spleen] (between 1917 and 1919; 3 pp.)	8
Louÿs, Pierre	1870	1925	France	Roses du soir (1915; 4 pp.)	3
Dučić, Jovan	1871	1943	Serbia	The Poplars (1915; 3 pp.)	1
Toussaint, Franz (translator of Saʿdī)	1879	1955	France		0
Selver, Paul (translator of Jovan Dučić)	1888	1970	England		0
Nichols, Robert (Malise Bowyer)	1893	1944	England	Music to “The Rider by Night” (1919; 54 pp.)	11
Morland, Harold	1908	1999	England	Frammento cantato (1967; 1 p.)	16