page_title: Edgar Allan Poe and music
section_title: Classical music
hierarchical_section_title: Edgar Allan Poe and music / Classical music
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Claude Debussy
context_page_description: The influence of Edgar Allan Poe on the art of music has been considerable and long-standing, with the works, life and image of the horror fiction writer and poet inspiring composers and musicians from diverse genres for more than a century.
context_section_description: Leon Botstein, conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra—which presented a program of "Tales From Edgar Allan Poe" in 1999—noted that in the realm of classical music, as in literature, Poe's influence was felt more deeply in Europe than in America.
  André Caplet's Conte fantastique for harp and strings, published in 1924 but begun at least as early as 1909, is a musical retelling of "The Masque of the Red Death".
  In 1913, Sergei Rachmaninoff set his choral symphony The Bells to a Russian translation of Poe's poem of the same name.
  The American conductor and composer Leonard Slatkin composed a setting of The Raven for narrator and symphony orchestra in 1971. A lesser-known American composer, Edgar Stillman Kelley (1857–1944) wrote a piece for orchestra entitled The Pit and the Pendulum.
  The American composer Philip Glass wrote the 1978 The Fall of the House of Usher to a libretto by Arthur Yorinks.
  The Russian composer Nikita Koshkin wrote the 1984 piece Usher Valse (Usher Waltz) for solo guitar, depicting Usher's frenzied guitar performance in the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher". The Usher Waltz has been recorded by John Williams and Elena Papandreou.
  The American composer James Poulsen composed "Five Poems of Edgar Allan Poe" for medium high voice and piano in 1986. The song cycle was orchestrated in 1998 with a commission from Jack and Dawn Taylor of Des Moines, Iowa. The Des Moines Symphony premiered the work in 1999 with Robin Roewe, tenor. The poems in the set are: 'Alone', 'Evening Star', Hymn', 'A Dream', and 'To One in Paradise.' Poulsen has also set a letter of Poe, a letter of Maria Clemm, and the valentine poem of Virginia Poe to music.
  The Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara based his 1997 choral fantasy "On the Last Frontier" on the final two paragraphs of Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
  Other operas based on stories by Poe are Ligeia, a 1994 opera by Augusta Read Thomas, and The Tell-Tale Heart by Bruce Adolphe. A ballet based on a story by Poe is Hop-Frog, a 2009 ballet by Terry Brown.
  The American composer Dominick Argento wrote an opera, based on the death of Poe.
  The American composer Emma Lou Diemer set "A Dream Within A Dream" and "Eldorado" for mixed chorus and piano. These works were published by Hinshaw Music, Inc. in 2001. Daron Hagen included settings of "A Dream Within a Dream" and "Thou Wouldst Be Loved" in the 1983 song cycle "Echo's Songs", published by E.C. Schirmer. Leonard Bernstein set "Israfel" as part of his song cycle for voices and orchestra, Songfest.
  Greek composer Dionysis Boukouvalas set Poe's sonnet To Zante to music in 2001. Zante (or Zakynthos) is Boukouvalas's native island. After a revision of the work in 2012, it was premiered at the very same island with the composer at the piano, sung by soprano Andriana Lykouresi.
  The British and American composer Tarik O'Regan uses portions of Poe's poem Israfel as the basis of his 2006 composition The Ecstasies Above for voices and string quartet.
  The American composer Christopher Rouse based his 2011 symphonic poem Prospero's Rooms on the castle of Prince Prospero in "The Masque of the Red Death."
  The American conductor and composer Adam Stern wrote a setting of Poe's early poem "Spirits of the Dead", subtitled "rhapsody for narrator and orchestra." The work received its world premiere in Seattle in October, 2014. Edmund Stone was the narrator, and the composer led the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra.
caption: Claude Debussy wrote an unfinished opera based on "The Fall of the House of Usher."
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