Before and After

 Before working on musical adaptations of poetry, I often thought that the performance of the poem (certain kinds of performances) was a way of adding a spurious kind of performativity that the poem didn't really need. Because a bad reading of the poem in a stentorian voice was a bad reading, one that detracted from the poem rather than adding anything to it.  

And I also disliked musical settings that seemed to do that to the poem: superimposing a cruder musical structure on the more delicate music of the prosody itself. 

I still think that on certain days. That is, the prosody of the poem itself is already musical, and the music setting overrides this, making it impossible to perceive any more.