Flute in poetry and poems for the flute

September 20, 2021

by Yulia Berry, D.M.A.

Poetry is music in words, and music is poetry in sound.
Fuller

Wikipedia defines Poetry (derived from the Greek poiesis, “making”) as a sort of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language.

The poet must begin with a poetic vision and then use the influential figures of speech, various forms of rhythm, cadence, alliteration, repetition, assonance, and consonance to obtain an adequate embodiment of this vision in terse form, which displays qualities very similar to music. The connection between music and poetry is solid and undeniable.

Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them.
Dennis Gabor (1900–1979)

Some poetry types are unique to certain cultures and languages in which the poet writes, so the readers can easily identify poetry by Dante, Goethe, Shakespear, or Rumi. However, there are traditions, such as poetry from the Bible, that use different means to create rhythm and euphony. Poets usually adapt forms, styles, and techniques from diverse cultures and languages in an increasingly globalized world. Poets have contributed to the development of linguistic, expressive, and utilitarian qualities of their tongues.

Poetry is about rhythm, flow, expression, and meaning. Instrumental music expresses just as much emotion as music. Words are more powerful than most people think. They can hurt or uplift people, and find their ways into hearts and soul, too! Music without any words can convey emotion and mood just like a poem does. Once you start seeing poetry as an equivalent to music, you’ll get occasional uncontrollable urges to read a specific poem, similarly to the urge to listen to a specific piece.

Poetry is the expression of the imagination.
Shelley

Actually, many types of poems don’t need words at all. Music and paintings are often described as poems. If they have rhythm and structure, it’s easy to explain them as works of poetry. After all, isn’t that what poetry is?

There are many mentions of the flute in poems of different cultures and time periods. This article will talk about three great examples of poetry and illustrate them with musical poems written for the flute.

Rumi

Rumi was a Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic who lived in the XIII century. Rumi’s influence has no borders and ethnic divisions. Rumi’s book “Masnavi “ holds about 30,000 couplets. The book is the apogee of the mystic and metaphorical expression in Persian Literature. The Reed`s Tale poem is the first poem in it. Let’s enjoy it:

Reed’s Tale

1. Listen to the story told by the Ney (the reed-flute), of being separated.

2. “Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.

3. Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.

4. Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.

5. At any gathering I am there,
mingling in the laughing and grieving,

6-7. a friend to each, but few
will hear the secrets hidden /
within the notes. No ears for that.

8. Body flowing out of spirit,
spirit up from body: no concealing /
that mixing. But it’s not given us
to see the soul.

9. The reed flute
is fire, not wind. Be that empty.”

10. Hear the love-fire tangled
in the reed notes, as bewilderment
melts into wine.

11. The reed is a friend
to all who want the fabric torn
and drawn away.

12. The reed is hurt and salve combining.
Intimacy and longing for
intimacy, one song

13. A disastrous surrender,
and a fine love, together.

14. The one who secretly hears this
is senseless. A tongue has
one customer, the ear.

A. If a sugarcane flute had no effect,
it would not have been able to make sugar
in the reedbed. Whatever sound
it makes is for everyone.

15-16. Days full of wanting, let them go by
without worrying that they do.

B. Stay where you are, inside
such a pure, hollow note.

17. Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim an ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!

C. No one lives in that without
being nourished every day.

18. But if someone doesn’t want
to hear the song of the reed flute,
it’s best to cut conversation
short, say goodbye, and leave.

-Version by Coleman Barks. From “Say I Am You: Rumi” (Athens, Georgia: Maypop Books, 1994, pp. 48-49); re-printed in
“The Essential Rumi,” pp. 17-19.

In order to deeply understand this poem, we need to analyze the metaphors used in it.

The first couplets of the poem tell us in a very mystical way about the origin of humanity regarding to where we truly come from. In common meaning, home is referred to as the place a person is born. According to Biblical scriptures and Quranic verses, home was the paradise where God created the first humans: Adam and Eve. That is the place where they were expelled from after they were tempted to disobey the request of God.

The reed flute is one of the oldest instruments people have been playing for about five millennials. It predominantly produces sad tones, but it comes to life and sings only if a flutist breathes out air into the flute body.

Interestingly, the reed-flute in Persian is called “Ney,” which is a literal metaphor for inexistence.

There are a few reasons why Rumi chose to use the reed-flute as a symbol for himself. The tone of “Ney” is mainly sad, and the story that is to be told by Rumi is of the exact nature. On the other hand, “Ney” means inexistence. But how is it possible to listen to something that does not exist? Here Rumi tries to suggest a verse of the Quran to portray himself and his divine beloved poetically. The verse is, “And (I) breathed into him, My Soul.” This Quaranic verse speaks about the creation of human beings.
It symbolizes how life was given to humanity as God breathed His soul into His creation.

In Rumi’s words, “Ney” has no sound and does not exist unless it is put on the lips of the beloved, where the divine breath brings it to life and gives it sound and a soul.

That is how Rumi explains the relationship between God and humans (or himself) in the most artistic and poetic sense.

Our existence becomes proof that the Divine Being gives us a sound and a soul, yet we cannot fully understand or hear God’s ways because our wisdom is limited, similarly to the way how the body of the flute confines the breath of the flute player, but can only grasp his breath up to a certain point.

In the poem Rumi uses a metaphor of separation of the reed from the reed-bed, a place where reeds grow in bunches, to the separation of humans and their expulsion from paradise to the world we live in now.
Like reeds, we were separated from our home, and the thought of being away from it brings us grievance and makes people cry because their soul can recall the time we were in paradise close to our God and now we are on our own, apart from each other and fragile.

Rumi compares the sorrowful sound that comes out of a reed flute to the sigh of a heartbroken heart that has been separated from home and his beloved one. At the same time, a person is trying to tell his painful story of the desire to be back home in a mystical way that is similar to the mesmerizing sound, coming from the reed flute.

The fourth couplet needs a deeper philosophical interpretation. It is natural to seek reunion with the dear divine God at a heavenly place, which is believed to be where we all came from. This reunion is mystically inevitable, and can happen two ways. The first may be a voluntary reunion during which a mystic person, with morality guidance, goes through self-refinement. The second way is the compulsory reunion that only happens when death arrives. What Rumi tries to say is that being reunited with your divine beloved while you are still alive is of much more value than when you are forced into it.

Poem by C.Griffes

Probably the most known Poem for the classical flute is by Charles Griffes (1884 -1920), one of the most famous American impressionist composers. Poem for flute and orchesra (1918) was premiered on November 16, 1919 by the New York Symphony Society under baton of Walter Damrosch with Georges Barrère on flute.

The New York Tribune called it a “composition of much grace and variety of expression, rich in melodic ideas and written with an unusual feeling both for the solo instrument and for the orchestra. If Americans can but continue to produce such works, all talk of the unrequited native composer will be speedily set at rest.”

Griffes died only a few months after the premiere.

Listen below to William Kincaid (student of Georges Barrère) with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra

Pierre-Jean de Béranger

Now let’s look at the fine example of the French poem/song.

Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780 –1857) was a prolific French poet and chansonnier (songwriter), who was very fashionable and influent in France during his lifetime, but faded into obscurity within the decades following his death. He was given such impressive epithets as “the most popular French songwriter of all time” and “the first superstar of French popular music”.

Like all chansonniers, he wrote lyrics but didn’t compose any music; he set the words to a pre-existing melody like a folk tune. The songs of Béranger are elaborate, written in a clear and sparkling style, filled with wit and incision. He worked deliberately, writing about 15 songs a year or less, and was so fastidious that he threw away one forth of his output.

“I am a good little bit of a poet,” Béranger said of himself, “clever in the craft, and a conscientious worker to whom old airs and a modest choice of subjects (le coin que me suis confine) have brought some success.”

Robin

In the spring, under a vast shade
Where murmured fresh streams,
I took my flute of reeds,
Magical present from an old sage.
At his voice, a people of birds
came to surround me with their rambling.