Open the song on Suno to listen to this edition.
A series of choices returns to the heart. Creative direction: literary art song · melody developing with the textWhat do these music words mean? ↓
Successive either-or questions place cultivation beside fame, frankness beside safety, and different birds beside one another. Which comparison makes you pause? The closing advice to follow one’s heart does not offer everyone the same answer.
The public brief takes an art-song approach, joining text, voice and accompaniment. It also requests through-composed writing: new words need not return to the same whole musical section. Follow the accumulating questions and compare musical return with onward movement, without assuming this recording’s form in advance.
Art song joins text and accompaniment; through-composed writing develops with the words. Compare two either-or questions: does similar wording follow the same melodic path?
Art song · words, voice and accompaniment · a little more An art song brings text, voice and instrumental accompaniment together; poetry is common in the traditional repertoire. Art does not rank songs, and the term does not mean opera. Here, literary art song is our editorial reading of the combined creative label, not certification of a fixed Western form.
Try listening: Follow a sentence, then ask whether accompaniment continues, answers or leaves space for it. Naming instruments is optional.
Art Song Preservation Society of New York · What Is Art Song? (PDF p.4) ↗ Through-composed · new music as the words progress · a little more Through-composed writing lets music progress with the text rather than setting each new stanza to the same whole section. It can still have clear sections and recurring small ideas: it does not mean formless. Compare the treatment of successive passages; this track’s brief is a proposal, not a completed listening analysis.
Try listening: Compare two passages with different meanings. Do their melodies take different paths? Repeated Verse labels alone cannot tell you.
The Open University · Schubert’s Lieder, Prometheus ↗ Read the lyrics [Instrumental Intro]
[Verse 1]
屈原既放三年，不得復見，竭知盡忠，而蔽鄣於讒。心煩慮亂，不知所從。往見太卜鄭詹尹曰：「余有所疑，願因先生決之。」詹尹乃端策拂龜，曰：「君將何以教之？」
屈原曰：「吾寧悃悃欵欵，朴以忠乎？將送往勞來，斯無窮乎？寧誅鋤草茅，以力耕乎？將游大人，以成名乎？寧正言不諱，以危身乎？將從俗富貴，以媮生乎？
[Verse 2]
寧超然高舉，㠯保真乎？將哫訾栗斯，喔咿儒兒，以事婦人乎？寧廉潔正直，以自清乎？將突梯滑稽，如脂如韋，以潔楹乎？
寧昂昂若千里之駒乎？將氾氾若水中之鳧乎？與波上下，偷以全吾軀乎？寧與騏驥亢軛乎？將隨駑馬之迹乎？寧與黃鵠比翼乎？將與雞鶩爭食乎？此孰吉孰凶？何去何從？
[Instrumental Interlude]
[Verse 3]
世溷濁而不清，蟬翼爲重，千鈞爲輕；黃鐘毀棄，瓦釜雷鳴；讒人高張，賢士無名。吁嗟默默兮，誰知吾之廉貞！」
詹尹乃釋策而謝曰：「夫尺有所短，寸有所長；物有所不足，智有所不明；數有所不逮，神有所不通。用君之心，行君之意，龜策誠不能知事。」
[Instrumental Outro]
