Review“This book’s essential intent is `to link American library texts with their published musical settings.’ It covers more than 2,400 works by 99 19th- and 20th-century poets, including Jones Very, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Vachel Lindsay, Sylvia Plath, and Allen Ginsberg, and provides access to approximately 5,800 settings by 2,100 composers. Entries are arranged alphabetically after the poet’s name, then by title of the poem, and include such data as the composer’s name, the title of the composition if dissimilar from the literary source, the facts of the publication, and brief remarks on the musical pieces (e.g., vocal specifications, required accompaniment). There are indexes to composers and to titles of literary works. Hovland’s bibliography begins to do for American poetry what Bryan Gooch and David Thatcher in Musical Settings of Late Victorian and Modern British Literature: A Catalogue, Musical Settings of Early and Mid-Victorian Literature: A Catalogue, and Musical Settings of British Romantic Literature: A Catalogue have done for English literature. While less ambitious than it is British counterparts, Hovland’s work justifies the author’s assert that it is comprehensive sufficient to serve as a original step toward further research. Its intended audience–musicians and singers, choral and instrumental conductors, radio station program directors, music merchants who sells goods at retail and publishers, teachers, and literary and music scholars and bibliographers–should find it useful.”–Choice
