Showing posts with label English translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English translation. Show all posts

Friday, May 28, 2021

Santoliquido: I canti della sera (with English translations)

L’assiola canta | Alba di luna sul bosco | Tristezze crepuscolare | L’incontro

Notes and English version ©2009, by Edward Lein; all rights reserved.
Please notify & credit when reprinting: edward_lein@hotmail.com
ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS & WRITINGS: LEINmachine | Art Song Translations

Francesco Santoliquido: I canti della sera (“The Songs of the Evening”)
Italian composer Francesco Santoliquido (1883-1971) completed the music and lyrics of his earliest surviving songs, I canti della sera (“The Songs of the Evening”) in 1908. They were published by Ricordi in 1912, and the journal Musical America recommended them “as the finest of modern concert songs” in 1922. But, in addition to composing, Santoliquido published books of verse and short stories, and in 1937 and 1938 he penned several fascist, anti-Semitic articles, and also decried musical modernism. As a result he was effectively ostracized from the progressive arts community. Ironically, his third wife, pianist Ornella Pulti Santoliquido, had been a student of Alfredo Casella (a prominent Jewish-Italian composer and a particular target of Francesco's), and she became known as an advocate of modern music.

As these four evocative "evening songs" demonstrate, Santoliquido’s early style blends characteristics of Debussy and Richard Strauss (by way of Puccini!), but they do not yet show the influence of the Arabic music that colored his later works, the result of a nine-year sojourn to North Africa which began in 1912.

The first song, L’assiola canta (“The Horned Owl Sings”), is an invitation to share an intimate walk through the woods on a still, starry evening, interrupted only by the mournful sigh of an owl.

Alba di luna sul bosco (“Moonrise over the Woods”) artfully depicts the appearance of a red moon over the forest and its shimmering reflection caught on the surface of a pond; this in turn leads the poet to reflect on the surrounding vast stillness and peace, and how such a perfect sense of communion mirrors, or perhaps even inspires newly found love.

As its title suggests, the mood of Tristezze crepuscolare (“Twilight Gloom”) changes from peaceful contemplation to sorrowful angst and agitation as the incessant pealing of evening church bells unearths painful memories of a lost love.

The final song, L’incontro (“The Encounter”), ends the cycle on a more hopeful note as it relates the happy reunion of a couple who years before had enjoyed a similar twilight flirtation, with evening bells and sqwaking seabirds now heard in the distance, just the same as before. The accompaniment includes rhythmic patterns similar to those used in the preceding songs, perhaps suggestive of the imperfectly-recalled memories mentioned in the lyrics.

I canti della sera ("The Songs of the Evening")
Italian lyrics by the composer (1908)


Ravel: Shéhérazade (with English translations of Tristan Klingsor's poems)

Notes and English version ©2009, by Edward Lein; all rights reserved.
Please notify & credit when reprinting: edward_lein@hotmail.com

ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS & WRITINGS: LEINmachine | Art Song Translations

Ravel / Klingsor: Shéhérazade
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) composed his magically evocative song cycle, Shéhérazade, in 1903 (the same year as his String Quartet and the first movement of his Sonatine for piano solo), setting for high voice and piano three poems by his friend, Tristan Klingsor (pseudonym of Léon Leclère, 1874-1966). The orchestral version soon followed, and it seems likely that the orchestrations were as much a part of Ravel's original conception as the vocal part and harmonies. The cycle was written for either soprano or tenor, and although it is seldom performed by a man, in 2004 baritone Konrad Jarnot released a recording with pianist Helmut Deutsch.

In 1903, Klingsor published a collection of 100 poems inspired by reading the Middle Eastern folktales known collectively as One Thousand and One Nights (or, Arabian Nights) which lately had been published in a French translation. He titled his poetry collection Schéhérazade, chosen in homage to Rimsky-Korsakov's similarly inspired symphonic suite, of which both he and Ravel were fans--it is perhaps significant that at the mention of "Sinbad" toward the end of the first song the solo violin, featured so prominently in Rimsky Korsakov's suite, can be heard in Ravel's orchestral setting (albeit doubled an octave below by Ravel). Ravel and Klingsor were likewise big fans of Debussy's revolutionary opera Pelléas et Mélisande, and they reportedly attended all 14 performances of the opera's premiere run in 1902.[1] When Ravel decided to set three of Klingsor's poems he made the poet re-read the lines aloud repeatedly, hoping to capture the rhythms of French speech patterns as perfectly as had Debussy.

Often warm and glittering but suffused with a melancholy longing, Ravel's music transforms our understanding of the poetry, particularly in the first and final songs. When first performed in 1904, Asie was sung as the last rather than first song. But when it came time to publish the score the composer changed the order of the songs, instead concluding with L'indifférent, in which Ravel "once suggested that the key to his own personality lay hidden ..." [2]

On the surface, Asie appears to be little more than a catalog of exotic enticements available to travelers--but the music suggests that the narrator is someone who feels trapped in a mundane existence, with the only likely escape found in reading the adventures of others.

La flûte enchantée is a straightforward depiction of romantic yearning as it relates how lovers, separated by constraints of servitude, discover that they can still form an immediate connection through music.

At first reading, L'indifférent comes across merely as a libertine eyeing a would-be conquest; but through the music one is left instead with the impression of a traveler isolated in a foreign land hoping to make any sort of human contact to overcome deep loneliness, but who seems somehow emotionally powerless to interact. It becomes almost as though Klingsor, when heard through the amplification of Ravel's music, has captured in a few lines what Thomas Mann related in his 1912 novella, Death in Venice.


FOOTNOTES
1. Ravel and Klingsor, among other young Parisian musicians, painters and writers, formed a society called Les Apaches whose purpose was to promote ground-breaking artistic achievements, and mutually supporting Debussy's controversial opera was chief among their efforts.
2. Quoting EMI producer Ronald Kinloch Anderson in his notes for the Janet Baker/Sir John Barbirolli recording re-released in 1975.


Note on the translations:
Ravel was exacting in his rhythmic setting of the French text, and the intent in my English version was to match the rhythm of the French original, syllable for syllable as closely as I could (but not with the intent that the English version might be substituted in performance!). Consequently a few words, mostly adjectives, not explicit in the French have been added to "fill-in-the-blanks" of the English -- these additions appear in gray font, and I would have no problem if they were omitted in reprinting. Less frequently a French word or two may have been omitted as long as the meaning isn't altered. A few other minor liberties have been taken in hope of making the English sound a little more linguistically idiomatic or "poetic," e.g., in the third line, "Où dort la fantaisie ..." which literally translates as "Where sleeps the fantasy ..." has been rendered: "Where sleeping fantasy lies ..."


Asie



La flûte enchantée


L'indifférent

Monday, April 5, 2010

English Versions of Song & Aria Texts

Translations/Versifications
English Versions of Song & Aria Texts

The linked English versions of various sung texts mostly have been made to use in program notes I have written. But, first off, let me state that I am not fluent in any language other than English. My versions have depended on literal translations of others and online translation tools for the meaning of the words. What I have attempted is to take the literal and translate it into poetry, usually as free verse, but sometimes also using the rhyme schemes of the original poetry.

For all texts/translations/versifications of the following go to http://sites.google.com/site/edwardlein/Home/translations, or click on the individual title:

•Berlioz / Gautier : Les nuits d'ete
•Conti: Il mio bel foco
La llorona (The Weeping Woman) (Folk song)
•Mozart/Metastasio: L'amerò, sarò costante
•Poulenc/Apollinaire: Hôtel
•Poulenc/Apollinaire: Rosemonde
•Poulenc/Apollinaire: Voyage à Paris
•Poulenc/Vilmorin: Mazurka (English version only)
•Puccini: Donde lieta uscì
•Puccini: Chi bel il sogno di Doretta
•Ravel / Klingsor: Shéhérazade
•Santoliquido: 'I canti della sera'
•Verdi / Piave: La donna è mobile

Friday, June 12, 2009

An English translation & versification of Théophile Gautier's 'Absence,' from Berlioz's "Les nuits d'ete"

CLICK HERE for the entire set of six poems



Revisions to the original translation (below) will be found at the above link.

IV. Absence

Reviens, reviens, ma bien-aimée!
Comme une fleur loin du soleil,
La fleur de ma vie est fermée
Loin de ton sourire vermeil.

Entre nos coeurs quelle distance!
Tant d'espace entre nos baisers!
Ô sort amer! ô dure absence!
Ô grands désirs inapaisés!

Reviens, reviens, ma bien-aimée!
Comme une fleur loin du soleil,
La fleur de ma vie est fermée
Loin de ton sourire vermeil.

D'ici 1à-bas, que de campagnes,
Que de villes et de hameaux,
Que de vallons et de montagnes,
A lasser le pied des chevaux!

Reviens, reviens, ma bien-aimée!
Comme une fleur loin du soleil,
La fleur de ma vie est fermée
Loin de ton sourire vermeil.

IV. Absence

Return, return, my own belovéd!
As closes the sun-lorn posy,
Thus has my life's flower been closéd
Sans thy smiling lips, e'er rosy.

CONTINUED HERE

Sunday, June 7, 2009

English translation of Theophile Gautier's 'Au cimetière' (from Berlioz's 'Les nuits d’ été')

I translated/versified three of the songs from Les nuits d’ été for a recent concert at the Library. Here's another of the poems in an English version by me. Note that this is meant to be a poetical rendering of the text, adapting Gautier's poetic scheme and the conventions of the time (Berlioz wrote his songs in 1847) as best I could -- but this is not at all meant as a "singable" version to fit Berlioz's music. (And I must say that this text leant itself less easily to an English rendering than the first three I did ...)

CLICK HERE for the entire set of six poems



The 1st, 3rd and last verses of the poem were also set by Henri Duparc in his song, Lamento.

This English version (©2009, E. Lein) may be freely used for nonprofit educational purposes such as student recitals, but please give credit and let me know!


Au cimetière : Claire du lune
[Lamento]



At the Cemetery : Moonlight
[Lament]


Connaissez-vous la blanche tombe,
Où flotte avec un son plaintif
L'ombre d'un if?
Sur l'if une pâle colombe,
Triste et seule au soleil couchant,
Chante son chant:

Knowest thou the tomb of white
Whither wafts the sound of sorrow
Neath th' yew's shadow?
Upon the yew a pale dove lights;
Sad and lone, to the western sun
He sings his song:

Un air maladivement tendre,
À la fois charmant et fatal,
Qui vous fait mal
Et qu'on voudrait toujours entendre;
Un air comme en soupire aux cieux
L'ange amoureux.

CONTINUED HERE

On dirait que l'âme éveillée
Pleure sous terre à l'unisson
De la chanson,
Et du malheur d'être oubliée
Se plaint dans un roucoulement
Bien doucement.



Sur les ailes de la musique
On sent lentement revenir
Un souvenir.
Une ombre, une forme angélique,
Passe dans un rayon tremblant,
En voile blanc.



Les belles de nuit demicloses
Jettent leur parfum faible
                            et doux
Autour de vous,
Et le fantôme aux molles poses
Murmure en vous tendant les bras:
Tu reviendras!



Oh! jamais plus près de la tombe,
Je n'irai, quand descend le soir
Au manteau noir,
Écouter la pâle colombe
Chanter sur la pointe de l'if
Son chant plaintif.



Sunday, March 15, 2009

MP3s at alternate site

The Google players are rather fickle of late. Here is a link to a string orchestra version of Hoodoo (the 1st movement): http://home.comcast.net/~edward_lein/hoodoo-strings.mp3

Un Dulcito: La Llorona


String orchestra version: http://home.comcast.net/~edward_lein/La_llorona-strings.mp3

The third movement of Un Dulcito (i.e., "A Little Latin American Sweet"), for violin and cello, is a chaconne-like setting of the Mexican folk song, La llorona, combined with the Latin hymn from the mass for the dead, the Dies irae.

The legend of the Weeping Woman (more of a ghost story really) varies throughout Latin America, and there are even some American versions of the tale (including one set in Kansas City). Essentially, a beautiful woman sets her sites on a wealthy man, but he rejects her because he doesn't want to be saddled with her several children. She decides she really, really wants the man, so she drowns her children--in some versions the man rejects her again, horrified by her monstrous behavior; and in others she is overcome by remorse and grief at what she has done. In all versions, she ends up drowning herself, and her spirit is doomed to wander the waterways in search of her children, tearfully wailing throughout eternity. (The story usually ends as a cautionary tale for other children--behave and don't venture near the water or La Llorona ["la yah-ROHN-nah"] may mistake you for one of her own children and pull you beneath the waves!)

There are a number of different versions of lyrics for the tune, which mostly seem to have very little to do with the legend. Here are some selected verses in English versions (i.e., not entirely literal translations) by me. The original Spanish words with the English are at http://sites.google.com/site/edwardlein/Home/translations/la-llorona-the-weeping-woman.


They all call me the somber one, Llorona,
somber, yet tender-hearted still.
*Though I' burn, like jalapeños, Llorona,
there's sweetness once you take your fill.
(*literally: "I am like the green chile, Llorona,
                 Burning hot yet delectable.")

They think I don't feel the pain, Llorona,
because they can't see me cry.
But even the dead are tearless, Llorona,
and their sorrow is greater than mine.

If the heavens were mine, Llorona, Llorona,
for you I’d pull all the stars down.
I’d place the moon there at your feet, Llorona,
and take the sun’s rays for your crown.

O take pity on me, Llorona, Llorona,
and down to the river let's go.
Hold me closely inside your shawl, Llorona,
for I think I shall die in the cold.

To a Savior who bore the world's pain, Llorona,
I confided my horrible grief.
But my sorrowful suffering was such, Llorona,
that it made even Jesus weep.

Translations ©2009-2010, E. Lein