The Fourth Dimension of a Song

How do composers respond to the sounds of language when they set words to music? What prompts them to elongate a particular vowel in a melodic line, to emphasize an especially expressive consonant, to highlight or exaggerate the purely sonic elements of a poem? Inspired by a recent article by the eminent literary critic M. H. Abrams called "The Fourth Dimension of a Poem," which focuses on the physical sensation of reading poems aloud, this article explores the diverse ways that song composers musicalize the different speech-sounds, or phonemes, of poetry for expressive effect. Case studies include Schubert's "Nacht und Traume" and Britten's "The Little Old Table,"from Winter Words.