Sonic transformations of literary texts: from program music to musical ekphrasis

Among the possible pairings between two art forms that express themselves in different sign systems (verbal, pictorial, sonic, kinetic, etc.), the relationship between words and images is the one that is most widely explored. And in fact, the most securely established terminology is found in a field that has experienced a significant revival in recent years: ekphrasis. The literary topos through which a poem (or any other text) addresses itself to the visual arts has received much attention in recent years and been subjected to intense scrutiny.