Keats
wrote the sonnet for an impromptu contest. Although we have the conventional
stop after both of the first two quatrains, the short clause, “That is the grasshopper’s,” linking the quatrains
and sounding like a coda to the first, gives the rhythm a brilliant asymmetry. The
syllable ‘creek’ or ‘kreek,’ providing an accompaniment counterpoint throughout should be sung with
a forceful ‘r’—best, I think, would be a front-trilled r like
the Spanish double rr, but any consistent solution might do. The final ‘ah’ in the bass and tenor should be the same vowel sung in ‘grass’,
that is, in ‘grasshopper’ and ‘grassy’. I like it back
in the throat, the English way, though the narrower North American ‘agh’ can be equally musical.
BY David Lidov
|