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Amye Buchan Graduation Lyrics Translation
Sweet Love Away
By Matthew Emery
Text by James Joyce
Original Text: English
In the dark pine-wood
I would we lay,
In deep cool shadow
At noon of day.
How sweet to lie there, sweet to kiss,
Where the great pine-forest
Enaisled is!
Thy kiss descending
Sweeter were
With a soft tumult
Of thy hair.
O unto the pine-wood
At noon of day
Come with me now,
Sweet love, away.
Il Barcaiolo
By Gaetano Donizetti
Text by Leopoldo Tarantini
Original Text: Italian
Voga, voga, il vento tace,
pura è l'onda, il ciel sereno,
solo un alito di pace
par che allegri e cielo e mar:
voga, voga, o marinar.
Or che tutto a noi sorride,
in sí tenero momento,
all'ebrezza del contento
voglio l'alma abbandonar.
Voga, voga, o marinar.
Chè se infiera la tempesta,
ambedue ne tragge a morte,
sarà lieta la mia sorte
al tuo fianco vuò spirar [sí].
Voga, voga, o marinar.
Translation - "The Boatman"
Row, row, the wind is silent,
The wave is pure, the sky is clear,
Only a breath of peace
Seems to comfort the sky and sea.
Row, row, oh sailor.
Now that everything smiles upon us
In such a tender moment,
I wish to abandon my soul to the intoxication of happiness.
Row, row, oh sailor.
Because if the storm rages,
And drags us both to our deaths,
My fate will be happy
By your side I want to die, yes,
By your side I want to die:
Row, row, oh sailor.
Avanti Urania
By Giacomo Puccini
Text by Renato Fucini
Original Text: Italian
Io non ho l'ali, eppur quando dal molo
lancio la prora al mar,
fermi gli alcioni sul potente volo
si librano a guardar.
Io non ho pinne, eppur quando i marosi
niun legno osa affrontar,
trepidando, gli squali ardimentosi
mi guardano passar.
Simile al mio signor,
mite d'aspetto
quanto è forte in cuor,
le fiamme ho anch'io nel petto,
anch'io di spazio, anch'io di gloria ho smania...
Avanti, Urania!
Translation - "Forward, Urania!"
I do not have wings, yet when from the pier
I launch the prow into the sea,
The kingfishers stop in their mighty flight
To hover and watch.
I do not have fins,
Yet when no ship dares to oppose the surging waves,
Anxiously, the fearless sharks watch me pass by!
Similar to my Lord,
I am as gentle in appearance
as am strong of heart,
I too have flames in my breast,
I too desire for space and glory,
Forward, Urania!
Let the florid music praise!
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Let the florid music praise,
The flute and the trumpet,
Beauty's conquest of your face:
In that land of flesh and bone,
Where from citadels on high
Her imperial standards fly,
Let the hot sun
Shine on, shine on.
O but the unlov'd have had power,
The weeping and striking,
Always; time will bring their hour:
Their secretive children walk
Through your vigilance of breath
To unpardonable death,
And my vows break
Before his look.
Now the leaves are falling fast
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.
Whisp'ring neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the sep'rate knees.
Dead in hundreds at the back
Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.
Starving through the leafless wood
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.
Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.
Seascape
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.
Here at the small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the suck-ing surf,
and the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.
Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.
Nocturne
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Now thro’ night's caressing grip
Earth and all her oceans slip,
Capes of China slide away
From her fingers into day
And th'Americas incline
Coasts towards her shadow line.
Now the ragged vagrants creep
Into crooked holes to sleep:
Just and unjust, worst and best,
Change their places as they rest:
Awkward lovers like in fields
Where disdainful beauty yields:
While the splendid and the proud
Naked stand before the crowd
And the losing gambler gains
And the beggar entertains:
May sleep's healing power extend
Through these hours to our friend.
Unpursued by hostile force,
Traction engine, bull or horse
Or revolting succubus;
Calmly till the morning break
Let him lie, then gently wake.
As it is, plenty
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
As it is, plenty;
As it's admitted
The children happy
And the car, the car
That goes so far
And the wife devoted:
To this as it is,
To the work and the banks
Let his thinning hair
And his hauteur
Give thanks, give thanks.
All that was thought
As like as not, is not;
When nothing was enough
But love, but love
And the rough future
Of an intransigent nature
And the betraying smile,
Betraying, but a smile:
That that is not, is not;
Forget, forget.
Let him not cease to praise
Then his spacious days;
Yes, and the success
Let him bless, let him bless:
Let him see in this
The profits larger
And the sins venal,
Lest he see as it is
The loss as major
And final, final.
Zueignung
By Richard Strauss
Text by Hermann von Gilm
Original Text: German
Ja, du weißt es, teure Seele,
Daß ich fern von dir mich quäle, Liebe macht die Herzen krank,
Habe Dank.
Einst hielt ich, der Freiheit Zecher,
Hoch den Amethysten-Becher,
Und du segnetest den Trank,
Habe Dank.
Und beschworst darin die Bösen,
Bis ich, was ich nie gewesen,
Heilig, heilig an’s Herz dir sank,
Habe Dank!
Translation - "Dedication"
Yes, dear soul, you know
That I’m in torment far from you,
Love makes hearts sick –
Be thanked.
Once, revelling in freedom,
I held the amethyst cup aloft
And you blessed that draught –
Be thanked.
And you banished the evil spirits,
Till I, as never before,
Holy, sank holy upon your heart –
Be thanked.
Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005).
Ständchen
By Richard Strauss
Text by Adolf Friedrich von Schack
Original Text: German
Mach auf, mach auf! doch leise, mein Kind,
Um Keinen vom Schlummer zu wecken!
Kaum murmelt der Bach, kaum zittert im Wind
Ein Blatt an den Büschen und Hecken;
Drum leise, mein Mädchen, daß nichts sich regt,
Nur leise die Hand auf die Klinke gelegt!
Mit Tritten, wie Tritte der Elfen so sacht,
Um über die Blumen zu hüpfen,
Flieg leicht hinaus in die Mondscheinnacht,
Zu mir in den Garten zu schlüpfen!
Rings schlummern die Blüten am rieselnden Bach
Und duften im Schlaf, nur die Liebe ist wach.
Sitz nieder! Hier dämmert's geheimnisvoll
Unter den Lindenbäumen.
Die Nachtigall uns zu Häupten soll
Von unseren Küssen träumen
Und die Rose, wenn sie am Morgen erwacht,
Hoch glühn von den Wonneschauern der Nacht.
Translation - "Serenade"
Open up, open up! but softly, my child,
So that no one’s roused from slumber!
The brook hardly murmurs, the breeze hardly moves
A leaf on the bushes and hedges;
Gently, my love, so nothing shall stir,
Gently with your hand as you lift the latch!
With steps as light as the steps of elves,
As they hop their way over flowers,
Flit out into the moonlit night,
Slip out to me in the garden!
The flowers are fragrant in sleep
By the rippling brook, only love is awake.
Sit down! Dusk falls mysteriously here
Beneath the linden trees.
The nightingale above us
Shall dream of our kisses
And the rose, when it wakes at dawn,
Shall glow from our night’s rapture.
Translation by ©Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005).
Ночью въ саду у меня
By Sergei Rachmaninoff
Text by Aleksandr Blok, based on a translation of a poem by Avetik Ishakian
Original Text: Russian
Ночью въ саду у меня
Плачетъ плакучая ива,
И безутѣшна она,
Ивушка, грустная ива.
Раннее утро блеснётъ,
Нѣжная дѣвушка-зорька
Ивушкѣ, плачучей горько,
Слёзы кудрями сотрётъ.
Translation - "In my Garden at Night"
At night in my garden
the weeping willow weeps,
and nothing will console her,
Sad willow tree.
With morning’s first light–
Dawn, tender maiden,
From the willow, weeping bitterly,
Will wipe away the tears with her tresses.
Translation by © Richard D. Sylvester, author of Rachmaninoff’s Complete Songs (Indiana University Press, 2014).
Эти летние ночи
By Sergei Rachmaninoff
Text by Daniil Rathaus
Original Text: Russian
Эти лѣтниiя ночи прекрасныя,
Яркимъ свѣтомъ луны озарённыя,
Порождаютъ тревоги неясныя,
Пробуждаютъ порывы влюблённые.
Забывается скорбь необъятная,
Что даруется жизнью унылою,
И блаженства края благодатные
Раскрываются тайною силою.
И открыли другъ другу, не властные
Надъ собою сердца мы влюблённыя,
Въ эти лѣтнiя ночи прекрасныя,
Свѣтомъ яркимъ луны озарённыя.
Translation - "These Summer Nights"
These beautiful summer nights,
Resplendent in the moo’s bright light
Give birth to vague feelings of alarm,
Give rise to surges of love.
Forgotten is the boundless melancholy
That is bestowed by sorrowful life,
And a promised land of happiness
Is revealed by a mysterious power.
And we open up to one another
Our hearts so helplessly in love.
On these beautiful summer nights,
Resplendent in the moon’s bright light.
Translation by © Richard D. Sylvester, author of Rachmaninoff’s Complete Songs (Indiana University Press, 2014).
La lune parassuesse
By Cécile Chaminade
Text by Charles de Bussy
Oringinal Text: French
Dans un rayon de crépuscule
S'endort la libellule;
Le rossignol s'est endormi
Sur la branche d'un chêne ami,
L'herbage est plein de lucioles,
Le ciel d'étoiles folles,
Et pourtant la lune qui luit
Laisse ses ombres a la nuit.
Mollement, Lune, tu reposes
Sous des nuages roses . . .
Oh! la paresseuse, pourquoi
Te jouer de mon tendre émoi ?
Toujours voilée à l'heure douce
Où, glissant sur la mousse,
Les cigales chantent moins fort,
Tu ne te montres pas encor!
Lève-toi! brillante et sereine,
Viens éclairer la plaine!
Lune d'argent, Lune au front blanc,
Illumine mon bras tremblant!
Frôle de ta lumière pure
L'or de ma chevelure:
Car c'est bientôt que va passer
Sur la route mon fiancé! . . .
Translation - “The idle moon”
In a ray of twilight
The dragonfly falls asleep;
The nightingale has fallen asleep
On the branch of a friendly oak,
The grass teems with glow-worms,
The sky with whirling stars,
And yet the shining moon
Permits the night its patches of darkness.
Quietly, O moon, you repose
Beneath pink clouds . . .
Oh! idle one, why
Do you toy with my tender feelings?
You are always hidden at the sweet hour
When the crickets, moving over the moss,
Sing less loudly,
And still you do not show yourself!
Arise, brilliant and serene,
Light up the plain!
Silver moon, white-faced moon,
Illumine my trembling arm!
Brush with your pure light
The gold of my tresses:
For it will not be long
Before my betrothed passes by! . . .
Translation by © Richard Stokes, author of A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000).
Hôtel
By Francis Poulenc
Text by Guillaume Apollinaire
Oringinal Text: French
Ma chambre a la forme d’une cage
Le soleil passe son bras par la fenêtre
Mais moi qui veux fumer pour faire des mirages
J’allume au feu du jour ma cigarette
Je ne veux pas travailler je veux fumer.
Translation – “Hotel”
My room is shaped like a cage
The sun slips its arm through the window
But I who want to smoke to make mirages
I light my cigarette on daylight's fire
I do not want to work I want to smoke
Translation by © Richard Stokes, author of A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000).
Animal Passion
By Jake Heggie
Text by Gini Savage
Original Text: English
Fierce as a bobcat’s spring
with start up speeds of sixty miles per hours
I want a lover to sweep me off my feet
and slide me into the gutter
without the niceties of small talk roses or champagne.
I mean business,
I want whiskey I want to be swallowed whole,
I want tiles to spring off of walls when we enter hotel rooms or afternoon apartments
I wont pussyfoot around responsibility “should” and “oughts” are out for good
Ah, ah, Ah!
And I don’t want to be a fat domestic cat
I want to be frantic,
yowls and growls to sound like the lion house at feeding time
I don’t give a damn who hears
I don’t give a damn!
no discreet eavesdroppers’ coughs can stop us in our frenzy.
Let the Voyeurs voient
and let the great cats (sss) come.
Art is Calling for Me
By Victor Herbert
Text by Harry B. Smith
Original Text: English
Mama is a queen and papa is a king;
So I am a princess, I know it;
But court etiquette is dull dreary thing,
I just hate it all, and I show it.
To song on the stage, that’s the one life for me,
My voice is just like tetrazzini;
I know I’d win fame if I Sang in “Boheme,”
That op’ra by Signor Puccini.
I’ve roulades and the trills
That would send the cold chills
Down the backs of all hearers of my vocal frills.
I long to be a prima donna,
I long to shine upon the stage;
I know before to long
I’d become the queen of song;
And my figure would look pretty as a page.
I want to be a screechy, peachy cantatrice,
Like other singers that I see;
I hate society,
I hate propriety;
Art is calling for me.
I’m in the elite, and men sigh at my feet;
Still I do not fancy my position;
I have not much use for the men that I meet;
I quite burn with lyric ambition.
Those tenors so sweet, if they made love to me,
I’d be a success that I do know;
And Melba I’d oust
If I once sang in “Faust,”
That op’ra s charming by Gounod.
Girls would be on the brink
Of hysterics, I think,
Even strong men would have to go out for a drink.
I long to be a prima donna,
I long to shine upon the stage;
With my je ne sais quoi
And my tra la la la la,
I would be the chief sensation of the age.
I long to hear the shouting;
“Viva” to the diva,
Oh, very lovely that must be;
That’s what I’m dying for,
That’s what I’m sighing for,
Art is Calling for me.
By Matthew Emery
Text by James Joyce
Original Text: English
In the dark pine-wood
I would we lay,
In deep cool shadow
At noon of day.
How sweet to lie there, sweet to kiss,
Where the great pine-forest
Enaisled is!
Thy kiss descending
Sweeter were
With a soft tumult
Of thy hair.
O unto the pine-wood
At noon of day
Come with me now,
Sweet love, away.
Il Barcaiolo
By Gaetano Donizetti
Text by Leopoldo Tarantini
Original Text: Italian
Voga, voga, il vento tace,
pura è l'onda, il ciel sereno,
solo un alito di pace
par che allegri e cielo e mar:
voga, voga, o marinar.
Or che tutto a noi sorride,
in sí tenero momento,
all'ebrezza del contento
voglio l'alma abbandonar.
Voga, voga, o marinar.
Chè se infiera la tempesta,
ambedue ne tragge a morte,
sarà lieta la mia sorte
al tuo fianco vuò spirar [sí].
Voga, voga, o marinar.
Translation - "The Boatman"
Row, row, the wind is silent,
The wave is pure, the sky is clear,
Only a breath of peace
Seems to comfort the sky and sea.
Row, row, oh sailor.
Now that everything smiles upon us
In such a tender moment,
I wish to abandon my soul to the intoxication of happiness.
Row, row, oh sailor.
Because if the storm rages,
And drags us both to our deaths,
My fate will be happy
By your side I want to die, yes,
By your side I want to die:
Row, row, oh sailor.
Avanti Urania
By Giacomo Puccini
Text by Renato Fucini
Original Text: Italian
Io non ho l'ali, eppur quando dal molo
lancio la prora al mar,
fermi gli alcioni sul potente volo
si librano a guardar.
Io non ho pinne, eppur quando i marosi
niun legno osa affrontar,
trepidando, gli squali ardimentosi
mi guardano passar.
Simile al mio signor,
mite d'aspetto
quanto è forte in cuor,
le fiamme ho anch'io nel petto,
anch'io di spazio, anch'io di gloria ho smania...
Avanti, Urania!
Translation - "Forward, Urania!"
I do not have wings, yet when from the pier
I launch the prow into the sea,
The kingfishers stop in their mighty flight
To hover and watch.
I do not have fins,
Yet when no ship dares to oppose the surging waves,
Anxiously, the fearless sharks watch me pass by!
Similar to my Lord,
I am as gentle in appearance
as am strong of heart,
I too have flames in my breast,
I too desire for space and glory,
Forward, Urania!
Let the florid music praise!
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Let the florid music praise,
The flute and the trumpet,
Beauty's conquest of your face:
In that land of flesh and bone,
Where from citadels on high
Her imperial standards fly,
Let the hot sun
Shine on, shine on.
O but the unlov'd have had power,
The weeping and striking,
Always; time will bring their hour:
Their secretive children walk
Through your vigilance of breath
To unpardonable death,
And my vows break
Before his look.
Now the leaves are falling fast
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.
Whisp'ring neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the sep'rate knees.
Dead in hundreds at the back
Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.
Starving through the leafless wood
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.
Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.
Seascape
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.
Here at the small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the suck-ing surf,
and the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.
Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.
Nocturne
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
Now thro’ night's caressing grip
Earth and all her oceans slip,
Capes of China slide away
From her fingers into day
And th'Americas incline
Coasts towards her shadow line.
Now the ragged vagrants creep
Into crooked holes to sleep:
Just and unjust, worst and best,
Change their places as they rest:
Awkward lovers like in fields
Where disdainful beauty yields:
While the splendid and the proud
Naked stand before the crowd
And the losing gambler gains
And the beggar entertains:
May sleep's healing power extend
Through these hours to our friend.
Unpursued by hostile force,
Traction engine, bull or horse
Or revolting succubus;
Calmly till the morning break
Let him lie, then gently wake.
As it is, plenty
By Benjamin Britten
Text by W.H. Auden
Original Text: English
As it is, plenty;
As it's admitted
The children happy
And the car, the car
That goes so far
And the wife devoted:
To this as it is,
To the work and the banks
Let his thinning hair
And his hauteur
Give thanks, give thanks.
All that was thought
As like as not, is not;
When nothing was enough
But love, but love
And the rough future
Of an intransigent nature
And the betraying smile,
Betraying, but a smile:
That that is not, is not;
Forget, forget.
Let him not cease to praise
Then his spacious days;
Yes, and the success
Let him bless, let him bless:
Let him see in this
The profits larger
And the sins venal,
Lest he see as it is
The loss as major
And final, final.
Zueignung
By Richard Strauss
Text by Hermann von Gilm
Original Text: German
Ja, du weißt es, teure Seele,
Daß ich fern von dir mich quäle, Liebe macht die Herzen krank,
Habe Dank.
Einst hielt ich, der Freiheit Zecher,
Hoch den Amethysten-Becher,
Und du segnetest den Trank,
Habe Dank.
Und beschworst darin die Bösen,
Bis ich, was ich nie gewesen,
Heilig, heilig an’s Herz dir sank,
Habe Dank!
Translation - "Dedication"
Yes, dear soul, you know
That I’m in torment far from you,
Love makes hearts sick –
Be thanked.
Once, revelling in freedom,
I held the amethyst cup aloft
And you blessed that draught –
Be thanked.
And you banished the evil spirits,
Till I, as never before,
Holy, sank holy upon your heart –
Be thanked.
Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005).
Ständchen
By Richard Strauss
Text by Adolf Friedrich von Schack
Original Text: German
Mach auf, mach auf! doch leise, mein Kind,
Um Keinen vom Schlummer zu wecken!
Kaum murmelt der Bach, kaum zittert im Wind
Ein Blatt an den Büschen und Hecken;
Drum leise, mein Mädchen, daß nichts sich regt,
Nur leise die Hand auf die Klinke gelegt!
Mit Tritten, wie Tritte der Elfen so sacht,
Um über die Blumen zu hüpfen,
Flieg leicht hinaus in die Mondscheinnacht,
Zu mir in den Garten zu schlüpfen!
Rings schlummern die Blüten am rieselnden Bach
Und duften im Schlaf, nur die Liebe ist wach.
Sitz nieder! Hier dämmert's geheimnisvoll
Unter den Lindenbäumen.
Die Nachtigall uns zu Häupten soll
Von unseren Küssen träumen
Und die Rose, wenn sie am Morgen erwacht,
Hoch glühn von den Wonneschauern der Nacht.
Translation - "Serenade"
Open up, open up! but softly, my child,
So that no one’s roused from slumber!
The brook hardly murmurs, the breeze hardly moves
A leaf on the bushes and hedges;
Gently, my love, so nothing shall stir,
Gently with your hand as you lift the latch!
With steps as light as the steps of elves,
As they hop their way over flowers,
Flit out into the moonlit night,
Slip out to me in the garden!
The flowers are fragrant in sleep
By the rippling brook, only love is awake.
Sit down! Dusk falls mysteriously here
Beneath the linden trees.
The nightingale above us
Shall dream of our kisses
And the rose, when it wakes at dawn,
Shall glow from our night’s rapture.
Translation by ©Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber, 2005).
Ночью въ саду у меня
By Sergei Rachmaninoff
Text by Aleksandr Blok, based on a translation of a poem by Avetik Ishakian
Original Text: Russian
Ночью въ саду у меня
Плачетъ плакучая ива,
И безутѣшна она,
Ивушка, грустная ива.
Раннее утро блеснётъ,
Нѣжная дѣвушка-зорька
Ивушкѣ, плачучей горько,
Слёзы кудрями сотрётъ.
Translation - "In my Garden at Night"
At night in my garden
the weeping willow weeps,
and nothing will console her,
Sad willow tree.
With morning’s first light–
Dawn, tender maiden,
From the willow, weeping bitterly,
Will wipe away the tears with her tresses.
Translation by © Richard D. Sylvester, author of Rachmaninoff’s Complete Songs (Indiana University Press, 2014).
Эти летние ночи
By Sergei Rachmaninoff
Text by Daniil Rathaus
Original Text: Russian
Эти лѣтниiя ночи прекрасныя,
Яркимъ свѣтомъ луны озарённыя,
Порождаютъ тревоги неясныя,
Пробуждаютъ порывы влюблённые.
Забывается скорбь необъятная,
Что даруется жизнью унылою,
И блаженства края благодатные
Раскрываются тайною силою.
И открыли другъ другу, не властные
Надъ собою сердца мы влюблённыя,
Въ эти лѣтнiя ночи прекрасныя,
Свѣтомъ яркимъ луны озарённыя.
Translation - "These Summer Nights"
These beautiful summer nights,
Resplendent in the moo’s bright light
Give birth to vague feelings of alarm,
Give rise to surges of love.
Forgotten is the boundless melancholy
That is bestowed by sorrowful life,
And a promised land of happiness
Is revealed by a mysterious power.
And we open up to one another
Our hearts so helplessly in love.
On these beautiful summer nights,
Resplendent in the moon’s bright light.
Translation by © Richard D. Sylvester, author of Rachmaninoff’s Complete Songs (Indiana University Press, 2014).
La lune parassuesse
By Cécile Chaminade
Text by Charles de Bussy
Oringinal Text: French
Dans un rayon de crépuscule
S'endort la libellule;
Le rossignol s'est endormi
Sur la branche d'un chêne ami,
L'herbage est plein de lucioles,
Le ciel d'étoiles folles,
Et pourtant la lune qui luit
Laisse ses ombres a la nuit.
Mollement, Lune, tu reposes
Sous des nuages roses . . .
Oh! la paresseuse, pourquoi
Te jouer de mon tendre émoi ?
Toujours voilée à l'heure douce
Où, glissant sur la mousse,
Les cigales chantent moins fort,
Tu ne te montres pas encor!
Lève-toi! brillante et sereine,
Viens éclairer la plaine!
Lune d'argent, Lune au front blanc,
Illumine mon bras tremblant!
Frôle de ta lumière pure
L'or de ma chevelure:
Car c'est bientôt que va passer
Sur la route mon fiancé! . . .
Translation - “The idle moon”
In a ray of twilight
The dragonfly falls asleep;
The nightingale has fallen asleep
On the branch of a friendly oak,
The grass teems with glow-worms,
The sky with whirling stars,
And yet the shining moon
Permits the night its patches of darkness.
Quietly, O moon, you repose
Beneath pink clouds . . .
Oh! idle one, why
Do you toy with my tender feelings?
You are always hidden at the sweet hour
When the crickets, moving over the moss,
Sing less loudly,
And still you do not show yourself!
Arise, brilliant and serene,
Light up the plain!
Silver moon, white-faced moon,
Illumine my trembling arm!
Brush with your pure light
The gold of my tresses:
For it will not be long
Before my betrothed passes by! . . .
Translation by © Richard Stokes, author of A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000).
Hôtel
By Francis Poulenc
Text by Guillaume Apollinaire
Oringinal Text: French
Ma chambre a la forme d’une cage
Le soleil passe son bras par la fenêtre
Mais moi qui veux fumer pour faire des mirages
J’allume au feu du jour ma cigarette
Je ne veux pas travailler je veux fumer.
Translation – “Hotel”
My room is shaped like a cage
The sun slips its arm through the window
But I who want to smoke to make mirages
I light my cigarette on daylight's fire
I do not want to work I want to smoke
Translation by © Richard Stokes, author of A French Song Companion (Oxford, 2000).
Animal Passion
By Jake Heggie
Text by Gini Savage
Original Text: English
Fierce as a bobcat’s spring
with start up speeds of sixty miles per hours
I want a lover to sweep me off my feet
and slide me into the gutter
without the niceties of small talk roses or champagne.
I mean business,
I want whiskey I want to be swallowed whole,
I want tiles to spring off of walls when we enter hotel rooms or afternoon apartments
I wont pussyfoot around responsibility “should” and “oughts” are out for good
Ah, ah, Ah!
And I don’t want to be a fat domestic cat
I want to be frantic,
yowls and growls to sound like the lion house at feeding time
I don’t give a damn who hears
I don’t give a damn!
no discreet eavesdroppers’ coughs can stop us in our frenzy.
Let the Voyeurs voient
and let the great cats (sss) come.
Art is Calling for Me
By Victor Herbert
Text by Harry B. Smith
Original Text: English
Mama is a queen and papa is a king;
So I am a princess, I know it;
But court etiquette is dull dreary thing,
I just hate it all, and I show it.
To song on the stage, that’s the one life for me,
My voice is just like tetrazzini;
I know I’d win fame if I Sang in “Boheme,”
That op’ra by Signor Puccini.
I’ve roulades and the trills
That would send the cold chills
Down the backs of all hearers of my vocal frills.
I long to be a prima donna,
I long to shine upon the stage;
I know before to long
I’d become the queen of song;
And my figure would look pretty as a page.
I want to be a screechy, peachy cantatrice,
Like other singers that I see;
I hate society,
I hate propriety;
Art is calling for me.
I’m in the elite, and men sigh at my feet;
Still I do not fancy my position;
I have not much use for the men that I meet;
I quite burn with lyric ambition.
Those tenors so sweet, if they made love to me,
I’d be a success that I do know;
And Melba I’d oust
If I once sang in “Faust,”
That op’ra s charming by Gounod.
Girls would be on the brink
Of hysterics, I think,
Even strong men would have to go out for a drink.
I long to be a prima donna,
I long to shine upon the stage;
With my je ne sais quoi
And my tra la la la la,
I would be the chief sensation of the age.
I long to hear the shouting;
“Viva” to the diva,
Oh, very lovely that must be;
That’s what I’m dying for,
That’s what I’m sighing for,
Art is Calling for me.