Ron Chaplin:

>I noticed that [Hanson's Symphony] No. 7 uses Whitman's poetry.  While
>haunting the CD bins, I've noticed that Hindemith wrote a piece based on
>"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed." I was wondering what other
>compositions have used Whitman's poetry as inspiration.

So glad you asked.  I keep running across such works and I haven't ever
seen them brought together, but here is a partial list, compiled from a
library catalog, omitting a few composers I never heard of.

Besides Hindemith, other composers set "When Lilacs...", including
Sessions, Ives, Crumb, George Walker and Robert Shallenberg.  Hanson
also set Whitman in Songs From Drum Taps, and Song of Democracy.

Some others:

John Adams - The Wound-dresser
Frank Bridge - The last Invocation
Creston - Leaves of Grass,
Delius - Sea Drift, Songs of Farewell, A Song Before Sunrise,
Dello Joio - The Vigil, Mystic Trumpeter, Proud Music of a Storm,
Prelude and Idyll, As of a
Dream
Roy Harris - Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun
Henze - Whispers from heavenly Death
Lee Hoiby - I Was There
Holst - Mystic Trumpeter
Knusen - Whitman Settings
Loeffler - Beat! Beat! Drums!
Luening - Farm Picture, Here the Frailest leaves of Me
Persichetti - Celebrations
Ned Rorem - Eagles; [others]
Schuman - Free Song
Robert Starer - To Think of Time
Kurt Weill - Four Walt Whitman Songs
Ralph Vaughan Williams -  Sea Symphony, Dona Nobis Pacem, Toward the
Unknown Region, Three Nocturnes
Yehuda Yannay - A Noiseless Patient Spider

Jim Tobin