Charles Alan Sylvestri's poem “Leonardo Dreams of a Hidden Flying Machine” is a dramatic story of hope and optimism that takes the listener on a great adventure into the great unknown. Leonardo functions as the agonist of the poem who is “tormented” by his need to fly and touch the sky. Finally, after much planning and determination, Leonardo takes a big leap of faith with his flying machine and his dreams of flight come true! To fully encapsulate Leonardo's conquest of the almighty heavens, it would be fitting for the text to be full orchestra accompanied by a SATB choir. This is the only combination of instrumentation and vocals that will fully capture the dramatic story of the piece (barring a Wagnerian musical drama). A full orchestra is a glorious medium that can be used to accommodate the full range of emotions contained in poetry thanks to the breadth of orchestral timbre. Parallel to the orchestra, a four-person choir is ideal for the lyrical expression of poetry due to the wide range of notes that can be sung by the soprano, bass and everyone else. The parts of the poem sung by the entire choir would be performed in an imitative polyphonic texture using malisms on the repeated line "Leonardo, Leonardo, comes to fly" to accentuate the fact that this line is a "siren's song" sung by "the aria itself”. However, the majority of the text would be sung by the tenor to give the piece a narrative quality, with the rest of the choir filling in for the Italian parts to underline the contrast between English and Italian that Sylvestri creates in his poem. It seems appropriate that the orchestra and choir perform a composed setting with a change of music for each piece... in the middle of the paper, which can be seen in the use of word painting in the first stanza on the words “ escape and fall” and “bring a man into the sun.” Although the similarities between the pieces are fleeting, both are able to take advantage of imitative polyphony and word painting to tell the same story in truly unique and different ways. In conclusion, the poem "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine" by Charles Alan Sylvestri can be set to music in very different ways to accentuate different aspects of the plot. The first textual setting described portrays a dramatic story of Leonardo conquering his dreams of flight (or so it seems), and the second, by Eric Whitacre, tells the same story in a less dramatic and more ethereal style. This text provides a great example of how the musical setting can completely change not only the listener's experience, but the story itself.