Pairings of great literature and classical music

Whenever I read literature, I try to pair it with relevant music, which is either based on the literature or mentioned explicitly in it. If you have recommendations, please share them.

Book of Job

• • Orlande de Lassus, Lectiones Sacrae Novem, Ex Libris Hiob Excerptae (ca. 1582)

Homer, The Iliad

• • Jacques Offenbach, La belle Hélène
  • Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens 

Homer, The Odyssey

• • Claudio Monteverdi, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland)

Sophocles

Electra

• • Richard Strauss, Elektra

Oedipus Rex

• • Igor Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex

Euripides, The Bacchae

• • Jules Massenet, Bacchus

Virgil, The Aeneid

• • Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas 
  • Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens (The Trojans)

Ovid, Metamorphoses

• • Christoph Willibald Gluck, Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice)
  • Franz Liszt, Orpheus
  • Ludwig van Beethoven, Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creation of Prometheus)

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

• • Franz Liszt, A Symphony to Dante’s Divine Comedy (also known as Dante Symphony)
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Francesca da Rimini

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

• • Henry Purcell, King Arthur
  • The Hilliard Ensemble, Medieval English Music: Masters of the 14th and 15 Centuries (Harmonia Mundi)

William Shakespeare

Hamlet

• • Johannes Brahms, Ophelia Lieder
  • Frédéric Chopin, Nocturne in G minor, Op. 15, No. 3
  • Franz Liszt, Hamlet
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Hamlet, Fantasy Overture in F Minor, Op. 67
  • Dmitri Shostakovich, Hamlet Suite
  • Dmitri Shostakovich, Song of Ophelia
  • Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique
  • Hector Berlioz, Tristia

Julius Caesar

• • Robert Schumann, Julius Caesar Overture

King Lear

• • Claude Debussy, Le roi Lear
  • Hector Berlioz, King Lear, Op. 4: Overture

Macbeth

• • Giuseppe Verdi, Macbeth
  • Richard Strauss, Macbeth

The Merchant of Venice

• • Vaughan Williams, Serenade to Music (based on Act V, Scene 1)
  • Gabriel Fauré, Shylock, Op. 57

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

• • Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Benjamin Britten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Othello

• • Giuseppe Verdi, Otello
  • Antonín Dvořák, Othello Overture
  • Gioachino Rossini, Otello

Romeo & Juliet

• • Hector Berlioz, Roméo et Juliette
  • Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet

The Tempest

• • Jean Sibelius, The Tempest (also known as Stormen)
  • Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 17 (Der Strum, meaning “the tempest” in German)
  • Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 23 (Appasionata, meaning “passionate” in Italian)

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress

• • Vaughan Williams, The Pilgrim’s Progress

George Herbert, The Temple

• • Henry Purcell, Harmonia Sacra (includes “Longing” with the song title based on the first line of the poem, “With sick and famish’d eyes”)
  • John and Charles Wesley, “Teach me, my God and King”
  • Vaughan Williams, Five Mystical Songs (includes “Easter,” “I Got Me Flowers,” “Love Bade Me Welcome,” “The Call,” “Antiphon”)

John Milton, Paradise Lost

• • Joseph Haydn, The Creation (also based on Genesis and the Psalms)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

• • Franz Schubert, “Gretchen am Spinnrade”
  • Robert Schumann, Scenes from Goethe’s Faust 
  • Hector Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust
  • Franz Liszt, Faust Symphony

Herman Melville, Billy Budd

• • Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

• • Richard Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra
  • Gustav Mahler, Third Symphony (includes “Zarathustra’s Roundelay”)

Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native

• • Gustav Holst, Egdon Heath

Oscar Wilde, Salome

• • Richard Strauss, Salome

Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata

• • Ludwig van Beethoven, Kreutzer Sonata

Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark

• • Christoph Willibald Gluck, Orfeo ed Euridice
  • Antonín Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 (also known as New World Symphony)
  • Edvard Grieg, Tak for Dit Råd
  • Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold

W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety

• • Leonard Bernstein, Symphony No. 2: The Age of Anxiety

Walker Percy, The Second Coming

• • Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 (suggested by Lewis Peckham)
  • Franz Schubert, Quintet in A Major for Piano and Strings, “Trout Quintet” (listened to by Allie in Will Barrett’s Mercedes)
  • Richard Strauss, Vier letzte Lieder, “Four Last Songs” (listened to by Will and Jack Curl at St. Mark’s Convalescent House)