Taking Dylan at His Word, Leaving the Rest

Take seven of Bob Dylan's songs — as beloved as "Blowin' in the Wind" and as obscure as "Clothes Line." Then discard the original melodies and reset the lyrics to a cycle of postmodern art songs, trading folk guitar for piano and Mr. Dylan's nasal, raspy vocals for a soprano at turns delicate and aggressive.

It sounds like the setup for a Christopher Guest film, but that was the challenge classical composer John Corigliano undertook in 2000. The resulting work, "Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan," will be revived by the vocalist Amy Burton and the pianist Stephen Gosling on Thursday as the opening performance of Symphony Space's Composers Project Series, curated by the composer Paul Moravec.

Renowned for his expressive and eclectic output (he is one of a small group that can claim a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award), Mr. Corigliano had already earned acclaim for an oratorio based on three Dylan Thomas poems when the soprano Sylvia McNair approached him to write her a song cycle based on an American text. He took a friend's suggestion and bought a book of Mr. Dylan's lyrics.

"I really didn't hear his songs, and didn't know the songs," Mr. Corigiliano, who started composing about the same time Mr. Dylan began recording, said. What he found was that Mr. Dylan's "use of language and imagery was as fine as any poet."

In March 2000, "Mr. Tambourine Man" made its premiere at Carnegie Hall to mixed reviews Critics almost universally lauded the production's musical craft, but many wondered if it wasn't some how pointless to divorce Mr. Dylan's iconic lyrics from the melodies that had carried them to the masses through the decades. Others championed the break from convention Larry Fuchsberg, writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, wrote that soprano Hila Plitmann's "wondrous diction — nothing like Bob Dylan's — lends his lines a crystalline beauty."

Of course, much has changed since 2000. When Mr. Corigliano composed "Mr. Tambourine Man," he could not have known that Mr Dylan's protest lyrics, the core of Mr. Corigliano's "progression of awakening," as he put it, would take on renewed resonance in the com ing years — just take "Masters of War," from Mr. Dylan's 1963 album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," with its unsparing condemnation of those who "build all the guns" and "hide behind desks."

But does that mean Mr. Dylan is an easy source for reinterpreta tion? There's a cautionary tale Twyla Tharp's "The Times They Are a Changin'," a jukebox musical that literally transformed Mr. Dylan's music into a circus act. It was decimated by critics, and closed in November after 63 performances But Ms. Tharp's misstep leaves an important question for Mr Corigliano: Just how much reinterpretation can Mr. Dylan's music and his fans, tolerate?

Mr. Corigliano insists that his cycle isn't quite as radical as it sounds "If you have Bob Dylan sing those songs, why does anybody else sing them? [Cover artists] do the same thing, they bend it in performance. They'll bend notes, they change phrases." Then again, Jimi Hendrix's classic version of "All Along the Watchtower," even Rage Against the Machine's cover of "Maggie's Farm," bear at least some resemblance to the original tunes.

What makes "Mr. Tambourine Man" truly original (and maybe misguided) musically is that it takes Mr. Dylan as a poet first and foremost. (The Composers Project underlines this reading: Mr. Corigliano's cycle will follow eight songs selected by Ms. Burton, among them John Musto's settings of e.e. cummings and Carl Sandburg, and Claude Debussy's settings of French symbolist Paul Verlaine.) The debate has been around nearly as long as Mr. Dylan himself. At a 1965 news conference revisited in "No Direction Home," a reporter asked Mr. Dylan whether he considered himself primarily a poet or a songwriter, to which he answered half-archly: "I think of myself more as a song-and-dance man."

As far as Mr. Corigliano knows, Mr. Dylan himself has never heard "Mr. Tambourine Man," though he plans to send him a CD after an orchestral version is recorded in February. He suspects Mr. Dylan would not be pleased. "It's such a different way of looking at his poetry, and such a different kind of music. He's not that interested in classical music from what I gather; he thinks it's somewhat elitist." Certainly you won't hear protesters singing Mr. Corigliano's version of "Blowin' in the Wind" in the streets anytime soon.

Rather, the primary effect of "Mr. Tambourine Man" is to magnify the melodic emotions only suggested in the lyrics. While Mr. Dylan's songs, like most popular music, repeat the same melody verse after verse and chorus after chorus, Mr. Corigliano's respond to each line of text, so that "Blowin' in the Wind" starts slow and ponderous, only to crescendo and quicken with greater and greater urgency. More than any cover or documentary, it forces an earnest reconsideration of Mr. Dylan's work — both his words and his melodies.

"Most of the people who heard these songs know almost all of them, if not all of them in terms of Bob Dylan's settings. So when they listen to it, they're really hearing two pieces at the same time," Mr. Corigliano said. Longtime Dylan listeners may not learn to love Mr. Corigliano's settings as much as the originals, but they just might return to their old scuffed and scratched LPs with renewed adoration.

Tomorrow at Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street, 212-864-5400).