Approaching musical concepts through poetry: Rosalia de Castro and the art song

Music and poetry have probably the oldest and closest friendship in the arts: poets look for musicality for their creations and composers need poems for their songs. Nothing new. Nevertheless, teaching Music or Literature at schools is rarely approached in an interdisciplinary way: Literature teachers usually ignore Music in the classroom (even in texts that were written to be sung, such as the troubadour songs of the Middle Ages) and Music teachers only pay attention to sounds. The Lied or art song is one of the most relevant examples joining Music and Poetry in the closest possible way. Music teachers should take advantage of what big literary names -like Rosalia de Castromean to students as a decoy for the introduction, analysis and overall enjoyment of vocal music. This paper will discuss some structural concepts -such as phrase and form- and the connections between folk dances and songs in a practical way. We do not aim to discuss them in depth but simply to apply basic terminology to songs, so students can have more tools to appreciate art songs as part of their cultural heritage. References to sheet music and recordings are also included to work on these issues. Some of the most relevant songs analysed in this article became popular via pop and folk music versions. This fact has a positive aspect, because it shows the power of these songs, and a not so positive one: it hides the way they were conceived by composers and all their nuances