Oxford’s Grove Dictionary of Music describes art song as “song intended for the concert repertory, as opposed to a traditional or popular song,” but despite this broad definition, poetry is the primary text source for art song. Poetry is stereotypically considered more suitable for art song because of its rhythm, meter, and rhyme. However, poems are not the only sources for art songs. Many examples of prose are used in song, such as Libby Larsen’s Try Me, Good King! which sets the last words of the wives of Henry XIII, and Patrice Michaels’ The Long View: A Portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Nine Songs, which sets texts from Justice Ginsburg’s life. Despite the wealth of potentials texts, there are not many songs set to text from novels. Even setting letters is more common than novel excerpts, including Stacy Garrop’s My Dearest Ruth and Libby Larsen’s Songs from Letters. There may be concerns which prevent text from novels being set to song, for example, the short length of a song may limit its ability to contextualize plot or character relationships. Composers and performers may also face challenges in approaching narration or dialogue from multiple characters to be sung by only one voice. Additionally, prose often contains more filler words and colloquial language. All of these are challenges which must be faced when adapting and performing text from novels. Despite these challenges, using text from novels can be a rewarding experience for musicians and audiences, as they bring to life the drama and emotion of a character. Some authors, such as Jane Austen, use novels to reflect their characters’ worlds as well as their own cultures and societies. Paired with art song, an intimate way of sharing human experiences with audiences, songs with text from novels have the potential to become profound snapshots of a character or author’s world. This paper will discuss art songs with prose text excerpted from novels and will analyze sources of both poetry and prose to determine if there are fundamental textual differences which prevent the performance of songs with text from novels.

The Studio Ghibli animated films have achieved international recognition for their cinematic quality and original soundtracks composed by Joe Hisaishi. The music from these films is so celebrated it is performed by symphony orchestras without the movie animations in concert halls worldwide. Film music originally scored for full-size orchestras can be arranged for smaller chamber ensembles and is a popular genre that makes performing these works more accessible. Arranging and rewriting orchestral reductions are skills collaborative pianists use every day when dealing with concertos or arias, and applying these skills to the music of Hisaishi was the foundation of this research. For this project, I created a medley of musical themes from three Studio Ghibli films: My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Spirited Away. The medley is written for traditional piano trio: violin, cello, and piano. This paper includes a brief history of the relationship between composer Joe Hisaishi and film director Hayao Miyazaki, one of the founders of Studio Ghibli, and explains the methods of creating this arrangement without access to the original orchestral score. Methods for creating transitions between different film themes, creation of countermelodies, and nuances of voicing are also presented, along with the score of the medley. I hope this project and these methods will inspire other collaborative pianists and musicians to create their own arrangements and medleys.