Jonas Kaufmann in Recital

PHOTO: ULI WEBBER
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA PRESENTS
Jonas Kaufmann in Recital
JONAS KAUFMANN, TENOR
HELMUT DEUTSCH, PIANIST
METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2011, 4:00–5:40 PM
36
PHOTO: ULI WEBBER
Jonas Kaufmann in Recital
j o n a s k au f m a n n ,
Tenor
hel mu t deu tsch,
P i a n i st
Sunday October 30, 2011, 4:00 –5:40 pm
fr a nz lisz t
(1811 – 1886)
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder
Im Rhein, im schönen Strome
Freudvoll und leidvoll
Der König in Thule
Ihr Glocken von Marling
Die drei Zigeuner
g u s t av m a h l e r Five Rückert Lieder
(186 0 – 1911) Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft
Liebst du um Schönheit
Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
Um Mitternacht
in t er mission
h e n r i d u pa r c L’Invitation au Voyage
(18 4 8 – 1933)Phidylé
Le Manoir de Rosamonde
Chanson Triste
La Vie Antérieure
r i c h a r d s t r au s s Schlechtes Wetter
(186 4 – 19 49) Schön sind, doch kalt die Himmelssterne
Befreit
Heimliche Aufforderung
Morgen!
Cäcilie
37
Notes on the Program
Liszt’s Overlooked Legacy
Throughout his long career, Franz Liszt was a shape-shifter. His constant need for
self-reinvention applies as much to his exploration of musical genres as to the glaring
contradictions that captivated the public imagination. (One contemporary diarist,
seeing the composer shortly after he had taken Holy Orders in later years, likened him
to “Mephistopheles disguised as an Abbé.”) Certainly Liszt’s creative restlessness left its
mark on his unique, though still largely underestimated, contribution to the art song.
In his early years as a virtuoso performer, Liszt helped popularize Schubert’s legacy
through influential piano transcriptions of his predecessor’s lieder, but by 1843 he began
publishing his own first official efforts in the genre. Even listeners who have ventured
beyond the conventional Lisztian warhorses are sometimes surprised to discover the
extent of his involvement with solo vocal music, which he produced—and obsessively
revised—at periodic intervals up until his death in 1886. The result is a collection of
some 80-plus songs, a significant number of which were substantially reworked into
alternative versions.
Liszt’s settings of German texts account for about three-quarters of his total lieder
output. They encompass a widely varying spectrum of solutions to the challenge of
re-conceiving ready-made, celebrated poems as song. Take the utterly contrasting styles
of the two settings of poems by Heinrich Heine. Liszt’s daring harmonic language
mordantly accentuates the singer’s bitter declamation in “Vergiftet sind meine Lieder,”
an acid-tinged anti-love song he first set in 1844 (the year he finally separated from his
mistress, the Countess Marie d’Agoult). The river flows majestically along in “Im Rhein,
im schönen Strome” (in E major rather than Wagner’s heroic E-flat) but is gently interrupted and diverted as the devout Liszt puts his own spin on Heine’s ironic conflation of
the erotic and sacred.
As in his choice of Heine—with whom he had once been friendly and then fell out—
Liszt was hardly the first composer to gravitate toward Goethe. He even competed with
himself in crafting two distinct versions of “Freudvoll and leidvoll,” a lyric sung by
the heroine in Egmont. The first calls for a ruminative, Schubertian swerve from major
to minor to frame its ecstasies, but for his second go Liszt radically compresses the
poem’s bipolar swings into a single tersely dramatic outburst. Into the self-consciously
archaic “Der König in Thule,” the ballad that Goethe uses to introduce us to Gretchen
in Faust, Liszt weaves a recurrent three-note figure that underlines the obsessive suggestive power of the golden goblet and unifies the song’s dramatic contrasts of tempo and
pacing.
In essence, Liszt’s continual revisions of his earlier lieder aimed to simplify and streamline what were frequently deemed overly virtuosic accompaniments. But simplicity of
an altogether different order permeates “Ihr Glocken von Marling.” Composed three
decades later, it represents the composer’s more ascetic late style and even anticipates
Impressionism with the unresolved harmonies left to resonate as an ostinato accompaniment. Liszt wrote “Die Drei Zigeuner” in 1860 to a poem by Nikolaus Lenau (whose treatment of the Don Juan legend inspired Richard Strauss’s tone poem). Here, in contrast,
he uses the piano not just to establish the “exotic” Hungarian setting but to characterize
each of the three gypsies in turn. Calling for an especially colorful narrative collaboration between singer and pianist, Liszt effectively creates a miniature music drama.
38
A Stylistic Turning-Point: Mahler’s Rückert Lieder
While the lied provided a test tube for several of Liszt’s ongoing musical experiments,
for Gustav Mahler it was prime fertile ground: the seedbed in which much of his
early symphonic thought first germinated. Mahler transcended the disparity between
the miniature form of the art song and his epic vision of the symphony by incorporating songs within his symphonies but also by endowing his song settings with a
symphonic richness of detail. The German folk poetry collection known as Des Knaben
Wunderhorn—settings of which form part of the landscape of his Second, Third, and
Fourth Symphonies—in particular served as an ongoing vehicle to bridge the worlds of
symphony and song.
But in the summer of 1901, when Mahler wrote his last two Wunderhorn songs, he
became captivated as well by the poetry of Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866). Mahler’s
attraction to Rückert was hardly unique: in fact it further aligns him with the lieder
tradition of Schubert and Schumann, who also set poems by Rückert (as did Liszt and
Strauss, for that matter). Yet the intimacy of this poetry, so distinct from the childlike
enchantment and folkloric imagery Mahler associated with the Wunderhorn anthology,
called for a new tone. The literary shift goes hand in hand with a stylistic one that also
left its mark on the Fifth Symphony, on which Mahler likewise began work at this time.
Not surprisingly, the period of the Rückert Lieder coincided with significant changes
in the composer’s own life and outlook. Mahler felt overjoyed by the beauty of his new
summer retreat, which was situated on an alpine lake in southern Austria, far from
the stress of Vienna. It was during his first summer there, in 1901, that he set seven of
Rückert’s poems to music. Three of these would eventually be incorporated into the five
songs of the Kindertotenlieder cycle; the other four are now known as part of the Rückert
Lieder. Meanwhile, by the following summer Mahler had married Alma Schindler. He
turned to yet another Rückert poem in 1902, which he addressed to his new bride.
In contrast to the Kindertotenlieder, Mahler didn’t conceive the five independent
Rückert Lieder as a unified cycle per se. The individual songs differ considerably in
character, and there is no overarching dramatic structure. (They can even be performed
in variable order.) The pared-down, lyrical transparency of style that Rückert inspired—
an often-remarked feature of their orchestral scoring—becomes especially apparent in
the songs’ versions for piano and voice. The melody of “Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft”
lingers as tenderly as the scent described by the poem, while a guileless, playful lyricism
pervades Mahler’s declaration of love to Alma, “Liebst du um Schönheit”—the last of
these five songs which he composed and the only one he did not orchestrate. “Blicke
mir nicht in die Lieder,” the briefest song in the set and the first to be written, elicits
Mahlerian nature painting more reminiscent of the Wunderhorn mode.
But the two longest Rückert Lieder also touch on larger themes familiar from the
symphonies. “Um Mitternacht” echoes the worried existential vigil with which Mahler
had set the Nietzsche text he uses in the Third Symphony but finds transcendence
beyond it. And in what is for many Mahlerians a candidate for the single most moving
song he ever wrote, “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,” the composer translates
Rückert’s imagery of tranquil withdrawal into music depicting a state of advanced spiritual awakening and acceptance.
39
Henri Duparc: A Path Beyond Romanticism
Unlike the other three composers on today’s program, each of whom wrote music until
the very end of his life, Henri Duparc had a brief compositional career that ended
abruptly while he was still in his thirties; it was followed by nearly a half-century of
silence. The reason Duparc stopped composing in the mid-1880s—aside from some
unfinished sketches, transcriptions, and orchestrations of his songs—is routinely
explained as the result of “neurasthenia,” the vague catch-all term for nervous exhaustion. But his breakdown and subsequent transferal of creative energy into the visual arts
(until blindness prevented that as well) suggest a case history that might be encountered
in the work of Oliver Sacks.
The young Duparc’s tragically foreshortened œuvre of just 17 songs nevertheless
made an enduring contribution to the treasury of the art song. Even more, through
these wonderfully atmospheric creations Duparc managed to forge a unique connection
between the mélodie he inherited from Berlioz and the influences of the “New German
School” he absorbed first from his mentor, César Franck, and then directly from pilgrimages to Munich and Bayreuth to hear Wagner, to whom Liszt personally introduced
him. Duparc’s songs do not form a cycle but appeared independently between 1868
and 1884 and were originally composed for voice and piano, though he later prepared
orchestral versions of eight of them as well.
Each of the five selections we hear is a gem in its own right. Overall, though, they
reveal some shared characteristics, such as Duparc’s attraction to the Parnassian and
Symbolist poets of his era, with their creed of “art for art’s sake.” Also apparent is
the profound sensitivity that allowed Duparc to articulate the inner lyrical tensions
expressed in these poems in musical terms—particularly through bold harmonic
patterns and an artful use of vocal declamation.
A characteristic wedding of sensual and psychological realism emerges in his treatment of Baudelaire’s “L’Invitation au Voyage.” Duparc’s surging accompaniment and
harmonic scheme convey the yearning for restless spiritual adventure, while the singer
seems to want to linger on the imagined ecstasies of such luxurious beauty. Leconte
de Lisle’s pastoral-erotic fantasy in “Phidylé” conjures a shimmering, blissful ode to
nature that almost anticipates the lucidly sensual classicism of Ravel. Duparc exhibits a
penchant for overt drama in the breathless rhythms of “Le Manoir de Rosamonde,” in
which Robert de Bonnières juxtaposes disturbing images of hunting and the wounds
caused by love, but brings the song to a marvelously subtle close. “Chanson Triste,”
the earliest effort here, already lends emotional depth to the fashionably resigned but
erotic pessimism of its poet, Henri Cazalis (aka “Jean Lahor”). Duparc turns again to
Baudelaire for “La Vie Antérieure”—the final song he completed—and constructs an
arresting progression of moods as we pass through the poem’s varied stages of nostalgia
and “voluptuous calm.”
40
Strauss and the Microcosm of Song
Richard Strauss’s reputation as one of the major figures in the operatic repertoire not
only sets him apart from his fellow composers on this program; it also tends to eclipse
the nature of his achievements in the more modest genre of the art song. Even as a song
composer, Strauss is best known for his development of orchestral lieder, thanks to
the enduring popularity of the Four Last Songs. Yet he published nearly 200 songs for
voice and piano alone. While Strauss was establishing his name as an enfant terrible
in the 1880s and 1890s with the advanced orchestral technique and dazzling illustrative powers of his tone poems, he was also laying claim to the great lieder tradition.
And, as with Mahler, his contemporary, the microcosm of song contained intimations
of far more ambitious undertakings, furnishing a crucible in which Strauss formed key
elements of his style. “In the lied,” writes biographer Michael Kennedy, “he could blend
voice and character, tone and emotional meaning, into a compressed unit, trying out
techniques (sometimes radical) which could be useful for him when applied to a larger
context.”
Strauss had the advantage of falling in love with a professional singer, Pauline de
Ahna, for whom he wrote a great many of his lieder in this formative period and who
eventually became his wife. After Pauline retired from the stage in 1906, Strauss stopped
writing songs for a dozen years. (His breakthrough with Salome in 1905 intensified his
focus on opera in the meantime.) “Schlechtes Wetter” marks his return to the genre in
1918. Strauss seems to play with expectations about song writing, starting with a histrionically “stormy” gesture but soon adopting an ironic attitude—in keeping with that of
Heine’s poem—with a light-hearted waltz strain that echoes the recent Ariadne auf Naxos.
“Schön sind, doch kalt die Himmelssterne,” in contrast, takes us back to the young
composer of 1888, masterfully building an arch of vocal melody over a standard accompanimental pattern. The text comes from Adolf Friedrich von Schack, an arts patron in the
composer’s native Munich and one of several older minor poets Strauss set in these years.
In the following decade he set poems by such progressive contemporaries as Richard
Dehmel (who inspired Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht), though Strauss harbored little
sympathy for Dehmel’s socialism. With its elusive mix of calm and yearning, “Befreit”
represents one of the composer’s most moving portrayals of a pose he depicts elsewhere
in both orchestral and operatic terms: that of the backward glance over a vanishing
happiness. (Strauss even quotes the song in his symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben.)
The final three songs we hear are justifiably among Strauss’s most famous. All are
intimately connected to his love for Pauline and come from the Op. 27 set of four lieder,
which he composed in 1894 as a wedding gift. The intimacy and perfectly judged simplicity
of “Morgen!” contrast with the knowing theatricality of “Heimliche Aufforderung” and
“Cäcilie.” Matching the cascade of quasi-orchestral gestures for the piano in the latter
two are heroically soaring vocal melodies that sound completely at home in the opera
house. —Thomas May
Yamaha is the official piano of the Metropolitan Opera.
41
About the Artists
Since making his Met debut in 2006 as Alfredo in La Traviata JONAS
KAUFMANN has returned to the company to sing Cavaradossi in Tosca,
Don José in Carmen, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, and Siegmund in Die
Walküre. In addition to today’s concert, he will also appear this season
in the title role of Faust at the end of November and as Siegmund. His
other operatic projects this season include his debut as Enée in Les
Troyens at Covent Garden, Don Carlo in Munich, Faust in Vienna, Don
José at both the Salzburg Easter and Summer Festivals, and his first
Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos next summer in Salzburg. Commanding
an unusually wide repertoire, Kaufmann’s debuts as Lohengrin with
Munich’s Bavarian State Opera in 2009 and at the Bayreuth Festival
in 2010, along with his first performances in the title role of Werther in 2010 at the Paris Opera,
were met with the highest critical and public acclaim. He sang his first Don José and Cavaradossi
at Covent Garden in 2006 and 2008, respectively, and has also been heard in these roles with
the Vienna State Opera, Berlin State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, and La Scala. Among recent
performances are Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur at Covent Garden and in Berlin, Florestan in
Fidelio and Don José in Munich, and Werther in Vienna.
He began his operatic career in Saarbrücken, and soon made debuts in Stuttgart, Munich,
Salzburg, Paris, Chicago, and Milan. He subsequently joined the Zurich Opera where he
expanded his repertoire with roles including Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea,
Tito in La Clemenza di Tito, the Duke in Rigoletto, Rodolfo in La Bohème, Faust, and Parsifal.
He made his debut at Covent Garden as Ruggero in La Rondine and also appeared there as
Don Carlo and Alfredo. He has also sung Alfredo at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bavarian State
Opera, Paris’s Bastille Opera, La Scala, and Zurich Opera. He opened the 2008 Lyric Opera
of Chicago season with his first Des Grieux in Manon and subsequently performed the role in
Vienna. Kaufmann’s first solo disc, Romantic Arias, was followed by Sehnsucht (a disc of German
Arias conducted by Claudio Abbado), Verismo under Antonio Pappano, and Die Schöne
Müllerin, as well as complete recordings of Madama Butterfly, Fidelio, and Oberon. He can also
be seen in DVDs of Tosca, Carmen, Werther, Lohengrin, Fidelio, and La Clemenza di Tito. Since
the beginning of his career Kaufmann has dedicated part of each season to extensive recital
tours with Helmut Deutsch. He also appears often in solo concerts, and this past summer joined
soprano Anna Netrebko and bass Erwin Schrott for concerts in Munich, Vienna, and Berlin.
HELMUT DEUTSCH studied piano, composition, and musicology in
his home city of Vienna and has been awarded the Vienna Composition
Prize for his creative achievements. He has specialized in chamber
music and song accompaniment and during his career has played for
many world-renowned instrumentalists, involving himself in all forms
of chamber music.
His career as an accompanist began with the distinguished German
soprano Irmgard Seefried, and he has since played for such renowned
singers as Juliane Banse, Barbara Bonney, Grace Bumbry, Ileana
Cotrubas, Diana Damrau, Brigitte Fassbaender, Angelika Kirchschlager,
Genia Kühmeier, Christiane Oelze, Rita Streich, Ruth Ziesak, Olaf Bär,
Matthias Goerne, Dietrich Henschel, Thomas Moser, Christoph Pregardien, Thomas Quasthoff,
Andreas Schmidt, Bo Skovhus, Michael Volle, and Bernd Weikl, among many others. For 12 years
he was the regular partner of German lyric baritone Hermann Prey.
Mr. Deutsch is a frequent guest at important music centers and festivals throughout the
world and appears on many prize-winning recordings. From 1967 to 1979 he taught at the
Vienna University of Music. He is currently a professor at Munich’s Hochschule für Musik and
regularly gives master classes throughout Europe and in Japan.
42
Texts and Translations
FRANZ LISZT (1811–1886)
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder
Poisoned Are My Songs
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder.
Wie könnt es anders sein?
Du hast mir ja Gift gegossen
Ins blühende Leben hinein.
Poisoned are my songs.
How could it be otherwise?
You have poured poison
Into my blossoming life.
Vergiftet sind meine Lieder.
Wie könnt es anders sein?
Ich trag’ im Herzen viel Schlangen,
Und dich, Geliebte mein!
Poisoned are my songs.
How could it be otherwise?
I bear in my heart many snakes,
And you, my beloved!
Im Rhein, im schönen Strome
In the Rhine, in the Beautiful Stream
Im Rhein, im schönen Strome
Da spiegelt sich in den Well’n,
Mit seinem großen Dome,
Das große, heil’ge Köln.
Im Dom da steht ein Bildnis,
Auf goldnem Leder gemalt;
In meines Lebens Wildnis
Hat’s freundlich hineingestrahlt.
Es schweben Blumen und Eng’lein
Um unsre liebe Frau;
Die Augen, die Lippen, die Wänglein,
Die gleichen der Liebsten genau.
In the Rhine, in the beautiful stream
There is mirrored by the waves,
With its great Cathedral,
The great, holy Cologne.
In the Cathedral there is a picture,
Painted on golden leather;
Into the wilderness of my life
It has kindly shone.
Flowers and angels hover
Around our Blessed Lady;
Her eyes, her lips, her dear cheeks,
They resemble my sweetheart exactly.
Freudvoll and leidvoll
Joyful and Sorrowful
Freudvoll und leidvoll, gedankenvoll sein,
Langen und bangen in schwebender Pein,
Himmelhoch jauchzend, zum Tode betrübt,
Glücklich allein ist die Seele die liebt.
To be joyful, sorrowful, thoughtful,
To long and fear in suspenseful pain,
Rejoicing to heaven, grieved to death,
Happy alone is the soul that loves.
text:
text:
text:
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
Heinrich Heine
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1799–1832)
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
Please do not turn the page until the end of the song.
Ins1
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS (CONTINUED)
Der König in Thule
The King in Thule
Es war ein König in Thule,
Gar treu bis an das Grab.
Dem sterbend seine Buhle,
Einen goldnen Becher gab.
There was a king in Thule,
So faithful to the grave.
His love, when she was dying,
A goblet of gold him gave.
Es ging ihm nichts darüber,
Er leert’ ihn jeden Schmaus.
Die Augen gingen ihm über
So oft er trank daraus.
He used to love it deeply,
And always drank from it.
His eyes they filled with tears
Whenever he emptied it.
Und als er kam zu sterben,
Zählt’ er seine Städt’ im Reich,
Gönnt’ alles seinen Erben,
Den Becher nicht zugleich.
And when his time to die came,
He counted all his wealth,
And everything gave to his heirs,
But only kept that cup.
Er saß beim Königsmahle,
Die Ritter um ihn her,
Auf hohem Vätersaale,
Dort auf dem Schloß am Meer.
He sat at the royal banquet,
With all his knights around,
In his forefathers’ lofty hall,
There in his castle by the sea.
Dort Stand der alte Zecher,
Trank letzte Lebensglut,
Und warf den heiligen Becher
Hinunter in die Flut.
There stood the old carouser,
And drank life’s final glow,
Then threw the holy goblet far
Deep down into the waves.
Er sah ihn stürzen, trinken
Und sinken tief ins Meer.
Die Augen täten ihm sinken,
Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr.
He watched it fall, and drinking
It sank deep into the sea.
He closed his eyes forever,
And never drank a drop more.
Ihr Glocken von Marling
Bells of Marling
Ihr Glocken von Marling, wie braust ihr so hell!
Ein wohliges Lauten, als sänge der Quell.
Ihr Glocken von Marling, ein heil’ger Gesang
Umwallet wie schützend den weltlichen
Klang,
Nehmt mich in die Mitte der tönenden Flut,
Ihr Glocken von Marling, behütet mich gut!
Bells of Marling, how brightly you toll!
It is a pleasant sound, as if a spring were singing.
Bells of Marling, your holy song
Surrounds everything, as if protecting the
worldly clangor,
Take me into the midst of your flood of tones,
Bells of Marling, protect me well!
text:
text:
Ins2
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Emil Kuh (1828–1876)
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
Die drei Zigeuner
The Three Gypsies
Drei Zigeuner fand ich einmal
Liegen an einer Weide,
Als mein Fuhrwerk mit müder Qual
Schlich durch sandige Heide.
Hielt der eine für sich allein
In den Händen die Fiedel,
Spielt’, umglüht vom Abendschein,
Sich ein feuriges Liedel.
Hielt der Zweite die Pfeif’ im Mund,
Blickte nach seinem Rauche
Froh, als ob er vom Erdenrund
Nichts zum Glücke mehr brauche.
Und der Dritte behaglich schlief,
Und sein Cimbal am Baum hing;
Über die Saiten der Windhauch lief,
Über sein Herz ein Traum ging.
An den Kleidern trugen die Drei
Löcher und bunte Flicken;
Aber sie boten trotzig frei
Spott den Erdengeschicken.
Dreifach haben sie mir gezeigt,
Wenn das Leben uns nachtet,
Wie man’s verraucht, verschläft, vergeigt,
Und es dreimal verachtet.
Nach den Zigeunern lang’ noch schaun
Mußt’ ich im Weiterfahren,
Nach den Gesichtern dunkelbraun,
Nach den schwarzlockigen Haaren.
Three Gypsies I found once
Lying by a willow,
As my cart with weary torture
Crawled over the sandy heath.
One, for himself alone, was holding
His fiddle in his hands,
Playing, as the sunset glow surrounded him,
A merry little tune.
The second held a pipe in his mouth,
And watched his smoke
With cheer, as if from the world
He required nothing more for his happiness.
And the third slept comfortably,
From the tree hung his cymbalom;
Over its strings the wind’s breath ran,
In his heart a dream was playing.
On the clothing those three wore
Were holes and colorful patches;
But, defiantly free, they made
A mockery of earthly fate.
Trebly they showed me how,
When life grows dark for us,
One can smoke, sleep or play it away,
And thus trebly to scorn it.
At the Gypsies, longer yet
I had to gaze in passing,
At their dark brown faces,
at their black-locked hair.
text:
Nikolaus Lenau (1802–1850)
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
Please do not turn the page until the end of the song.
Ins3
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS (CONTINUED)
GUSTAV MAHLER (1860–1911)
Five Rückert Lieder
text:
Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866)
Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft!
I Breathed a Gentle Fragrance!
Ich atmet’einen linden Duft!
Im Zimmer stand
Ein Zweig der Linde,
Ein Angebinde
Von lieber Hand.
Wie lieblich war der Lindenduft!
I breathed a gentle fragrance!
In the room stood
A sprig of linden,
A gift
From a dear hand.
How lovely was the fragrance of linden!
Wie lieblich ist der Lindenduft!
Das Lindenreis
Brachst du gelinde!
Ich atme leis
Im Duft der Linde
Der Liebe linden Duft.
How lovely is the fragrance of linden!
That twig of linden
You broke off so gently!
Softly I breathe in
The fragrance of linden,
The gentle fragrance of love.
Liebst du um Schönheit
If You Love for Beauty
Liebst du um Schönheit,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe die Sonne,
Sie trägt ein gold’nes Haar!
If you love for beauty,
Oh, do not love me!
Love the sun,
She has golden hair!
Liebst du um Jugend,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe den Frühling,
Der jung ist jedes Jahr!
If you love for youth,
Oh, do not love me!
Love the spring,
It is young every year!
Liebst du um Schätze,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe die Meerfrau,
Die hat viel Perlen klar!
If you love for treasure,
Oh, do not love me!
Love the mermaid,
She has many clear pearls!
Liebst du um Liebe,
O ja, mich liebe!
Liebe mich immer,
Dich lieb’ ich immerdar!
If you love for love,
Oh yes, do love me!
Love me ever,
I’ll love you evermore!
Ins4
t r a nsl at ion :
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
David Kenneth Smith
Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!
Look Not into My Songs!
Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!
Meine Augen schlag’ ich nieder,
Wie ertappt auf böser Tat.
Selber darf ich nicht getrauen,
Ihrem Wachsen zuzuschauen.
Deine Neugier ist Verrat!
Look not into my songs!
My eyes I lower,
As if I’ve been caught in an evil deed.
I can’t even trust myself,
To watch them grow.
Your curiosity is a betrayal!
Bienen, wenn sie Zellen bauen,
Lassen auch nicht zu sich schauen,
Schauen selber auch nicht zu.
Die reichen Honigwaben
Sie zu Tag gefördert haben,
Dann vor allen nasche du!
Bees, when they build their cells,
Also do not let anyone observe them,
Even themselves.
When the rich honeycombs
Are brought out to the light of day,
Then you shall taste them before everyone else!
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
I Am Lost to the World
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!
I am lost to the world,
With which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long,
That it may very well believe that I am dead!
Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.
It is without consequence to me,
Whether it thinks me dead,
I cannot deny it,
For I really am dead to the world.
Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
Und ruh’ in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb’ allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!
I am dead to the world’s tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!
t r a nsl at ion :
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
Emily Ezust
Please do not turn the page until the end of the song.
43
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS (CONTINUED)
Um Mitternacht
At Midnight
Um Mitternacht
Hab’ ich gewacht
Und aufgeblickt zum Himmel;
Kein Stern vom Sterngewimmel
Hat mir gelacht
Um Mitternacht.
At midnight
I awoke
And gazed up to heaven;
No star in the entire mass
Did smile down at me
At midnight.
Um Mitternacht
Hab’ ich gedacht
Hinaus in dunkle Schranken.
Es hat kein Lichtgedanken
Mir Trost gebracht
Um Mitternacht.
At midnight
I projected my thoughts
Out past the dark barriers.
No thought of light
Brought me comfort
At midnight.
Um Mitternacht
Nahm ich in acht
Die Schläge meines Herzens;
Ein einz’ger Puls des Schmerzes
War angefacht
Um Mitternacht.
At midnight
I paid close attention
To the beating of my heart;
One single pulse of agony
Flared up
At midnight.
Um Mitternacht
Kämpft’ ich die Schlacht,
O Menschheit, deiner Leiden;
Nicht konnt’ ich sie entscheiden
Mit meiner Macht
Um Mitternacht.
At midnight
I fought the battle,
O Mankind, of your suffering;
I could not decide it
With my strength
At midnight.
Um Mitternacht
Hab’ ich die Macht
In deine Hand gegeben!
Herr! über Tod und Leben
Du hältst die Wacht
Um Mitternacht!
At midnight
I surrendered my strength
Into your hands!
Lord! over death and life
You keep watch
At midnight!
44
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
HENRI DUPARC (1848–1933)
L’Invitation au Voyage
Invitation to the Voyage
Mon enfant, ma sœur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble.
My child, my sister,
Think of the sweetness
Of going there to live together!
To love at leisure,
To love and to die
In a country that is the image of you.
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.
The misty suns
Of those hazy skies
Have for me the same
Mysterious charm
As your fickle eyes,
Shining through their tears.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
There, all is harmony and beauty,
Luxury, calm and delight.
Vois sur ces canaux,
Dormir ces vaisseaux,
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde.
C’est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde.
See how those ships,
Nomads by nature,
Are slumbering on the canals.
To gratify your every desire
They have come
From the ends of the earth.
Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D’hyacinthe et d’or.
Le monde s’endort
Dans une chaude lumière!
The westering suns
Clothe the fields,
The canals, the whole town,
With reddish-orange and gold.
The world falls asleep
Bathed in warmth and light!
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
There, all is harmony and beauty,
Luxury, calm and delight.
text:
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
t r a nsl at ion :
Peter Low
Please do not turn the page until the end of the song.
45
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS (CONTINUED)
Phydilé
Phydilé
L’herbe est molle au sommeil sous les frais
peupliers,
Aux pentes des sources moussues,
Qui dans les prés en fleur germant par mille
issues,
Se perdent sous les noirs halliers.
The grass is soft for sleeping under the fresh
poplars,
On the slopes by the mossy springs,
Which in the flowery meadow arise in a thousand
rills,
To be lost under dark thickets.
Repose, ô Phidylé! Midi sur les feuillages
Rayonne et t’invite au sommeil!
Par le trèfle et le thym, seules, en plein soleil,
Chantent les abeilles volages.
Rest, O Phidylé! the midday sun on the leaves
Is shining and invites you to sleep!
In the clover and the thyme, alone, in full sunlight,
The hovering bees are humming.
Un chaud parfum circule au détour des sentiers,
La rouge fleur des blés s’incline,
Et les oiseaux, rasant de l’aile la colline,
Cherchent l’ombre des églantiers.
A warm fragrance haunts the winding paths,
The red poppy of the cornfield droops,
And the birds, skimming the hill on the wing,
Seek the shade of the sweet briar.
Mais, quand l’Astre, incliné sur sa courbe
éclatante,
Verra ses ardeurs s’apaiser.
Que ton plus beau sourire et ton meilleur baiser
Me récompensent de l’attente!
But when the sun, sinking lower on its
resplendent orbit,
Finds its fire abated,
Let your loveliest smile and your most ardent kiss
Reward me for my waiting!
Le Manoir de Rosamonde
The Mansion of Rosamonde
De sa dent soudaine et vorace
Comme un chien l’amour m’a mordu…
En suivant mon sang répandu,
Va, tu pourras suivre ma trace…
Prends un cheval de bonne race,
Pars, et suis mon chemin ardu,
Fondrière ou sentier perdu.
With sudden and voracious teeth
Like a dog, love has bitten me…
Following the blood that I have spilled,
Go, you can trace the trail…
Take a thoroughbred horse,
Set out, and follow my arduous course,
By quagmire or hidden path.
Si la course ne te harasse!
En passant par où j’ai passé,
Tu verras que seul et blessé,
J’ai parcouru ce triste monde.
Et qu’ainsi je m’en fus mourir,
Bien loin, bien loin, sans découvrir
Le bleu manoir de Rosamonde.
If the chase does not weary you!
Passing where I have passed,
You will see that alone and wounded,
I have crossed the sad world.
And that thus I have come to die,
Far away, far away, without finding
The blue mansion of Rosamonde.
text:
Charles-Marie-René Laconte de Lisle
(1818–1894)
text:
46
Robert de Bonnières (1850–1905)
t r a nsl at ion :
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
Peter Low
Chanson Triste
Sad Song
Dans ton cœur dort un clair de lune,
Un doux clair de lune d’été.
Et pour fuir la vie importune
Je me noierai dans ta clarté.
In your heart there sleeps a beam of moonlight,
A sweet summer moonlight.
And to escape wearisome life
I shall drown myself in your light.
J’oublierai les douleurs passées,
Mon amour, quand tu berceras
Mon triste cœur et mes pensées
Dans le calme aimant de tes bras.
I shall forget my past woes,
My love, when you cradle
My sad heart and my thoughts
In the loving calm of your arms.
Tu prendras ma tête malade
Oh! quelquefois sur tes genoux,
Et lui diras une ballade
Qui semblera parler de nous.
You will take my aching head
Oh, sometimes upon your knees,
And recite to it a ballad
Which will seem to speak of us.
Et dans tes yeux pleins de tristesses.
Dans tes yeux alors je boirai
Tant de baisers et de tendresses
Que peut-être je guérirai…
And in your eyes, full of sadness,
In your eyes, then, I shall drink
So many kisses and caresses
That perhaps I shall be healed…
La Vie Antérieure
The Former Life
J’ai longtemps habité sous de vastes
portiques
Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux,
Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux,
Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques.
For a long time I lived beneath immense
porticoes
That the sea-suns dyed with a thousand rays,
And whose great columns, erect and majestic,
At night seemed just like basalt grottoes.
Les houles, en roulant les images des cieux,
Mêlaient d’une façon solennelle et mystique
Les tout puissants accords de leur riche musique
Aux couleurs du couchant reflété par mes
yeux…
The rolling waves tossing the celestial images,
Blended in a solemn and mystic way
The all-powerful chords of their rich music
With the colors of the sunset reflected in my
eyes…
C’est là, c’est là que j’ai vécu dans les voluptés
calmes
Au milieu de l’azur, des vagues, des
splendeurs,
Et des esclaves nus tout imprégnés d’odeurs
It is there, there that I lived in tranquil
luxury
In the midst of the azure, the waves and the
wonders,
And the nude slaves imbued with fragrance
Qui me rafraîchissaient le front avec des palmes,
Et dont l’unique soin était
d’approfondir
Le secret douloureux qui me faisait languir.
Who refreshed my brow with palm leaves,
And whose sole purpose was to understand in
depth
The agonizing secret that made me suffer.
text:
text:
Henri Cazalis (1840–1909)
Charles Baudelaire
t r a nsl at ion :
t r a nsl at ion :
Richard Stokes
Dann Mitton
Please do not turn the page until the end of the song.
47
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS (CONTINUED)
RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)
Schlechtes Wetter
Terrible Weather
Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter,
Es regnet und stürmt und schneit;
Ich sitze am Fenster und schaue
Hinaus in die Dunkelheit.
It is terrible weather,
It’s raining and storming and snowing;
I sit at the window and gaze
Out into the darkness.
Da schimmert ein einsames Lichtchen,
Das wandelt langsam fort;
Ein Mütterchen mit dem Laternchen
Wankt über die Straße dort.
There, a lonely light is gleaming,
And it moves slowly onward;
A little old woman with a lantern
Totters across the street there.
Ich glaube, Mehl und Eier,
Und Butter kaufte sie ein;
Sie will einen Kuchen backen
Für’s große Töchterlein.
Flour and eggs, I think,
And butter she has bought;
She plans to bake a cake
For her grown-up darling daughter.
Die liegt zu Hause im Lehnstuhl
Und blinzelt schläfrig ins Licht;
Die goldnen Locken wallen
Über das süße Gesicht.
She is lying at home in an armchair
And she blinks sleepily in the light;
Her golden curls straying
Over her sweet face.
Schön sind, doch kalt
die Himmelssterne
The Heavenly Stars Are Fair
But Cold
Schön sind, doch kalt die Himmelssterne,
Die Gaben karg, die sie verleihn;
Für einen deiner Blicke gerne
Hin geb’ ich ihren goldnen Schein.
The heavenly stars are fair but cold,
The gifts that they lend meager;
For one look from you I would gladly
Give up their golden gleam.
Getrennt, so daß wir ewig darben,
Nur führen sie im Jahreslauf
Den Herbst mit seinen Ährengarben,
Des Frühlings Blütenpracht herauf.
So that we are always starved, only separately,
Do they bring out in the course of a year
Autumn with its ears of corn
And spring with its splendor of blossoms;
Doch deine Augen, oh der Segen
Des ganzen Jahres quillt überreich,
Aus ihnen stets als milder Regen,
Die Blüte und die Frucht zugleich.
Yet from your eyes, oh the blessing
Of the entire year springs richly,
As constant as a mild rain,
With both blossom and fruit.
text:
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
t e x t : Adolf Friedrich, Graf von Schack
(1815–1894)
48
t r a nsl at ion :
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
Emily Ezust
Befreit
Liberated
Du wirst nicht weinen. Leise, leise
Wirst du lächeln: und wie zur Reise,
Geb’ ich dir Blick und Kuß zurück.
Unsre lieben vier Wände! Du hast sie bereitet,
Ich habe sie dir zur Welt
geweitet.
O Glück!
You will not weep. Gently
You will smile, and as before a journey,
I will return your gaze and your kiss.
Our dear four walls you have helped build,
And I have now widened them for you into the
world.
O joy!
Dann wirst du heiß meine Hände fassen
Und wirst mir deine Seele lassen,
Läßt unsern Kindern mich zurück.
Du schenktest mir dein ganzes Leben,
Ich will es ihnen wiedergeben.
O Glück!
Then you will warmly seize my hands
Ad you will leave me your soul,
Laving me behind for our children.
You gave me your entire life,
So I will give it again to them.
O joy!
Es wird sehr bald sein, wir wissen’s beide,
Wir haben einander befreit vom Leide,
So geb’ ich dich der Welt zurück.
Dann wirst du mir nur noch im Traum erscheinen,
Und mich segnen und mit mir weinen.
O Glück!
It will be very soon, as we both know,
But we have freed each other from sorrow,
And so I return you to the world.
You will then appear to me only in dreams,
And bless me and weep with me.
O joy!
Heimliche Aufforderung
Secret Invitation
text:
text:
Richard Dehmel (1863–1920)
John Henry Mackay (1864–1933)
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
t r a nsl at ion : Laurence Snyder
and Rebecca Plack
Auf, hebe die funkelnde Schale empor zum Mund,
Und trinke beim Freudenmahle dein Herz gesund.
Und wenn du sie hebst, so winke mir heimlich zu,
Dann lächle ich und dann trinke ich still wie du…
Up, raise the sparkling cup to your lips,
And drink your heart’s fill at the joyous feast.
And when you raise it, so wink secretly at me,
Then I’ll smile and drink quietly, as you…
Und still gleich mir betrachte um uns das Heer
Der trunknen Schwätzer—verachte sie nicht zu sehr.
Nein, hebe die blinkende Schale, gefüllt mit Wein,
Und laß beim lärmenden Mahle sie glücklich sein.
And quietly as I, look around at the crowd
Of drunken revelers—don’t think too ill of them.
No, lift the twinkling cup, filled with wine,
And let them be happy at the noisy meal.
Doch hast du das Mahl genossen, den Durst
gestillt,
Dann verlasse der lauten Genossen festfreudiges
Bild,
Und wandle hinaus in den Garten zum
Rosenstrauch,
Dort will ich dich dann erwarten nach altem Brauch.
But when you’ve savored the meal, your thirst
quenched,
Then quit the loud gathering’s joyful
fest,
And wander out into the garden, to the
rosebush,
There shall I await you, as often of old.
Und will an die Brust dir sinken, eh du’s erhofft,
Und deine Küsse trinken, wie ehmals oft,
Und flechten in deine Haare der Rose Pracht.
O komme, du wunderbare, ersehnte Nacht!
And ere you know it shall I sink upon your breast,
And drink your kisses, as so often before,
And twine the rose’s splendor into your hair.
O come, you wondrous, longed-for night!
Please do not turn the page until the end of the song.
49
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS (CONTINUED)
Morgen!
Tomorrow!
Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen,
Und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen werde,
Wird uns, die Glücklichen, sie wieder einen,
Inmitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde…
And tomorrow the sun will shine again,
And on the path I will take,
It will unite us again, we happy ones,
Upon this sun-breathing earth…
Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogenblauen,
Werden wir still und langsam niedersteigen,
Stumm werden wir uns in die Augen schauen,
Und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes
Schweigen.
And to the shore, the wide shore with blue waves,
We will descend quietly and slowly,
We will look mutely into each other’s eyes,
And the silence of happiness will settle
upon us.
text:
John Henry Mackay
Cäcilie
text:
Heinrich Hart (1855–1906)
t r a nsl at ion :
t r a nsl at ion :
Emily Ezust
Emily Ezust
Wenn du es wüßtest,
Was träumen heißt von brennenden Küssen,
Von Wandern und Ruhen mit der Geliebten,
Aug in Auge,
Und kosend und plaudernd,
Wenn du es wüßtest,
Du neigtest dein Herz!
If you only knew
What it’s like to dream of burning kisses,
Of wandering and resting with one’s beloved,
Eye turned to eye,
And cuddling and chatting—
If you only knew,
You would incline your heart to me!
Wenn du es wüßtest,
Was bangen heißt in einsamen Nächten,
Umschauert vom Sturm, da niemand
tröstet
Milden Mundes die kampfmüde Seele,
Wenn du es wüßtest,
Du kämst zu mir.
If you only knew
What it’s like to feel dread on lonely nights,
Surrounded by a raging storm, while no one
comforts
With a mild voice your struggle-weary soul—
If you only knew,
You would come to me.
Wenn du es wüßtest,
Was leben heißt, umhaucht von der Gottheit
Weltschaffendem Atem,
Zu schweben empor, lichtgetragen,
Zu seligen Höh’n,
Wenn du es wüßtest,
Du lebtest mit mir!
If you only knew
What it’s like to live, surrounded by God’s
World-creating breath,
To float up, carried by the light,
To blessed heights,
If you only knew,
Then you would live with me!
Acknowledgements
MANAGEMENT FOR MR. KAUFMANN AND MR. DEUTSCH Zemsky / Green
PIANO BY Steinway
Artists Management
& Sons
TRANSLATIONS BY Emily
Ezust, © Emily Ezust, from The Lied and Song Texts Pages,
lieder.net; David Kenneth Smith, © 1996 David Kenneth Smith, ClaraSchumann.net
50