The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry of the

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

cover: After Joan Miro, woven by Josep Royo, Woman, 1977, wool and cotton tapestry, 

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Gift ofthe Collectors Committee and George L. Erion

The Seventieth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,893rd Concert

Charlotte de Rothschild, soprano 

Danielle Perrett, harpist

Presented in honor ofthe exhibition 

Joan Miro: The Ladder ofEscape

May 13, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Joan Miro

From Le Travaille du peintre

A sa Guitare

Ned Rorem (b. 1923)

Early in the Morning

Erik Satie (1866-1925)

La Diva de l’Empire

Traditional Melody

Els Segadors, Himne Nacional de Catalunya

Lyrics by Emili Guanyavents

Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Sure on This Shining Night

Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960)

Silver

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Aria: Break in Grief

From The Passion According to Saint Matthew, BWV 244

Suitefor Solo Cello, BWV 1007

Prelude

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Die Nachtigall

Gary Higginson (b. 1952)

How Beautiful Is the Rain

Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999)

Canticel

Cango del Teuladi

From Cuatre cangons en llengua catalane

INTERMISSION

Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900)

The Sun Whose Rays

Edmund Rubbra (1901-1986)

Farewell to a Japanese Buddhist Priest Homeward Bound

Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002)

Cancion de cuna para dormer a un negrito

From Cinco Canciones Negras

Frederic Mompou (1893-1987)

Jo et pressentia com la mar (Combat del somni)

Comptines no. 3 (Hevistdins la lluna)

Philip Cannon (b. 1929)

La hien Aimee

La hien Mariee
The Musicians

CHARLOTTE DE ROTHSCHILD

Known for her unique approach in tailoring her recital programs to specific

themes, Charlotte de Rothschild has performed throughout the world,

singing in eighteen languages and including songs from many different 

eras and genres. One of her most popular programs is “Family Connections,”

in which she sings music by composers who were friends, teachers, or

ancestors of her family during the last two hundred years. Her research for

this repertoire is based on a musical autograph book, Livre d’Or, started

in the 1820s by an ancestor who was also named Charlotte. Working with 

musicologists Philip Gossett and Francesco Izzo, she presented the Livre

d’Or in 2011 at the American Musicological Society’s conference in San

Francisco. Other themes de Rothschild has explored in music are “Flower

Songs by the Season,” “Women ofthe Old Testament,” and “A Woman’s

Lot”—a humorous look at the passage oflife. The program she has fashioned for tonight’s concert is not her first to focus on art. With harpist

Danielle Perrett, she has created a program for an exhibition titled “Making

History” at the McMullen Museum ofArt in Boston.

After performing in Japan for over twenty years, de Rothschild recorded 

a CD of classical Japanese songs titled A Japanese Journey. Sung in Japanese,

the project was the first such recording by a gai-jin (foreigner), and received

much attention in Japan and Europe. Subsequently, contemporary Japanese 

composer Yui Kakinuma was commissioned to adapt a cycle ofsongs by

Kohsaku Yamada (1886-1985) for performance by de Rothschild and the 

English Chamber Orchestra. The song cycle has been heard at the Barbican in

London, the Royal Castle Museum in Prague, and in various venues in Japan.

Recently returned from a recital tour in Japan, de Rothschild’s upcoming appearances include return engagements in Hong Kong, Japan, and

Singapore as well as recitals at the Caramoor Center for the Arts and Yale

University’s Center for the Study of British Art. A Nimbus Alliance artist, 

Charlotte de Rothschild maintains a website at www.charlottederothschild.com.

4

DANIELLE PERRETT

From Buckingham Palace and the Palace ofVersailles to the Musikverein in

Vienna and Wigmore Hall in London, Danielle Perrett’s recital career has 

placed her on the world’s most prestigious concert stages. Much in demand

in Great Britain, she has played on many occasions for the birthdays ofmembers of Britain’s Royal Family and has performed for the past four prime

ministers. Other countries in which she has concertized include Australia,

the Czech Republic, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United

States, and Zimbabwe. A prizewinner in international competitions, she has 

received awards from the Arts Council of Great Britain, and the livery ofthe 

Worshipful Company of Musicians, a London-based guild that dates back

to 1350. A veteran of numerous radio and television broadcasts, Perrett has 

appeared in the 1995 bbc-tv film adaptation ofJane Austen’s novel Persuasion

and Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings.

5
Program Notes

Born in Barcelona in 1893, Joan Miro’s first introduction to the harshness of

political life occurred during his military service in World War 1, when his

regiment was ordered to suppress a general strike in 1917. The years during

and immediately following the war in Spain were rife with strikes and radical 

labor agitation, and saw the rise ofsocialism, anarchism, and syndicalism.

An outgrowth ofthe unrest in the Iberian Peninsula was the Catalonian struggle for independence, which Miro supported with a mixture of passion and

pessimism. Upon completion of his military service in 1919, he retreated to

the countryside around Mont-roig, where he painted landscapes. The peace

ofthat setting was arguably the first rung in his personal “ladder of escape.”

But the troubled world around him could not be ignored, and Paris—at 

the time a hotbed of artistic activity and innovative political thought—beckoned. 

In 1920 Miro declared himself an international Catalan and moved to the

city oflights, where the French art world took an immediate liking to two

ofthe paintings he had brought with him, both completed the year before.

Self-Portrait and Mont-roig, the Church and the Village were first displayed in

the Catalan section ofthe Salon dAutomne and subsequently in an exhibition

at the Galeries Dalmau. Presented in honor ofthe Joan Miro exhibit, The

Ladder ofEscape, on display in the East Building until August 12, this evening’s

concert features works closely related to Miro’s artistic heritage in Catalonia.

Tonight’s program begins with Francis Poulenc’s “Joan Miro” from the

cycle Le Travaille du peintre (The Work ofthe Painter). An avid art lover, the

poet Paul Eluard was often moved to write poems about the painters whose

works affected him most. In 1948 he published a collection titled Voir (View)

that includes tributes to Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Juan Gris, Paul Klee,

Joan Miro, and Jacques Villon. Inspired both by the poetry and by the cubist

and surrealist works ofthose artists, Francis Poulenc wrote a song cycle,

using seven poems from Eluard’s collection. Although not from the same

cycle, Poulenc’s “A sa Guitare” is also appropriate, since Miro included the

instrument in a number of his paintings, including Catalan Peasant with

Guitar (1924) and Harlequin’s Carnival (1924/1925).

6

As the 1920s progressed, Miro immersed himselfin the rich cultural

scene of Paris where he became friends with the circle ofwriters that

frequented the Rue Blomet. In 1924 he went to the Theatre de la Cigale, 

where he saw the ballet Mercure, which featured music by Erik Satie and sets

designed by Pablo Picasso. This time in Miro’s life is represented by the

songs “Early in the Morning”—written by Ned Rorem, an American composer who similarly spent much time in Paris—and “La Diva de l’Empire”

(Diva ofthe Empire) by Erik Satie.

Events in Spain came to a head with the coup d’etat of 1923. In reaction

to the repression that followed, Miro went out ofhis way to stress his Catalan 

identity, creating a large number of paintings with the word “Catalan” in the

title. For his painting for the Spanish Republic Pavilion in the Paris International Exposition of 1937 he chose the title Le Faucher (The Reaper), making it a thinly-disguised portrait ofthe Catalan peasant in revolt. The hymn

that the Catalonians had adopted as their national anthem, Els Segadors, (The

Reapers), calls upon loyal Catalonians to sharpen their sickles in preparation

for a great conflict.

No longer able to travel freely due to the civil war in Spain, Miro settled

in France between 1936 and 1940. He wrote to Pierre Matisse: “We are living 

through a terrible drama, everything that is happening in Spain is terrifying

in a way you could never imagine.” The terror worsened in 1940, when the

German Wehrmacht invaded France, and the artist and his family were

forced to move again quickly, this time to Palma in Majorca. It was in this

period that he began his Constellation Series, with its dream-like representations of outer space—perhaps another ladder of escape. Stars in a deep blue

background appear behind his paintings of peasant heads, and even The

Reaper—now lost, but researchable through photographs—had a starry sky

as its background. This aspect of Miro’s imagery is represented by the song

Sure on This Shining Night.

Another favorite Miro image is the moon, often appearing as a crescent

in his paintings, among them Femmes, oiseau au clair de lune (Women and

Bird in the Moonlight) and Chien aboyant a la lune (Dog Barking at the

Moon). The exhibition catalogue quotes one of Miro’s fellow refugees of

7
i94°- Andre Gide, who wrote in his diary: “Everything swoons and seems to

be enraptured in the light of an almost full moon.... I think of all those for

whom this so beautiful night is the last.” The same thoughts are juxtaposed

by the song “Silver,” by British composer Armstrong Gibbs, and the aria

“Break in Grief,” a lament on the death ofJesus from Johann Sebastian

Bach’s great Passion According to Saint Matthew.

A lover ofthe music of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, Miro had in his

collection of gramophone recordings Bach’s suites for solo cello, as played 

by Pablo Casals, a fellow Catalonian in exile. Danielle Perrett plays the

“Prelude” from the Suite in G Major, BWV 1007, adapted as a left-hand

exercise for the harp.

Whenever he was in Palma, Miro visited its cathedral most mornings

at 10:00. He wrote: “At that hour ofthe morning, there was nobody about

except for the organist, who was rehearsing. I hung around for ages. There

was the organ music, sometimes singing, and the light coming in through

the stained glass windows (extraordinary, those windows), and the canons

dressed all in red in the gloom.” Inspired by his experiences in the cathedral,

in 1945 he painted Femme entendant de la musique (Woman Listening to Music).

He also planned to paint a series called Musique-Evasion (Music-Escape), but

it was never realized.

Birds are very important to Miro’s iconography, particularly as he comments on the violence ofwar. Blood drips from the red cockscombs ofroosters,

and in the series Le Vol de I'oiseau sur la plaine (The Flight of a Bird over the

Plain) the “birds” are planes dropping bombs, alluding to the bombers that

devastated Barcelona, Madrid, and Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

His bronze sculpture Personnage et oiseau (Figure and Bird) from 1966 features an airplane, nose down. The eleventh Constellation painting, Le Chant

du rossignol a la minuit et la pluie matinale (The Nightingale’s Song at Midnight and Morning Rain), completed in Palma in 1940, is the inspiration

for including Johannes Brahms’ “Die Nachtigall” (The Nightingale) and

Gary Higginson’s “How Beautiful is the Rain.”

Although Joaquin Rodrigo was a native ofValencia, the region just south

of Catalonia, he often used Catalan texts, which he set with uncommon sensitivity. Originally composed for soprano and orchestra, his collection Cinque

canciones en llengua Catalan (Five Songs in the Catalan Language) features

neoclassical style with modal harmonies. The second ofthe two songs selected 

for this recital—Cango del Teuladi (Song ofthe Sparrow)—returns to the

imagery of birds.

References to the fierce heat ofthe sun are frequent in both music and

art. Sir Arthur Sullivan’s “The Sun Whose Rays” calls to mind such Miro 

works as Sunrise—the first ofthe 1940 Constellation paintings; Femme et

fillette devant la soleil (Woman and Little Girl in Front ofthe Sun), 1946; and

Le soleil rouge ronge I’araignee (The Red Sun Gnaws at the Spider), 1948. In

response to a 1958 commission from Unesco, Miro created Wall ofthe Sun

and Wall ofthe Moon for its headquarters building in Paris.

In close touch with Japanese culture since 1937, when he collaborated

with writer Shuzo Takiguchi in the context of a surrealist exhibition in Japan, 

Miro was influenced by his readings in Zen Buddhism. He attributed his

own considerable powers of concentration to what he had learned about

the preparation ofJapanese archers, the Yabusame, who use breath control

to heighten their concentration. In 1966 Miro was able to fulfill a long-held

dream by visiting Japan and presenting exhibitions of his work in Tokyo and

Kyoto. Noting this important event in the artist’s life, the musicians include

Edmund Rubbra's “Farewell to a Japanese Buddhist Priest Homeward Bound.”

Turning to the work of composers who, like Miro, identified closely 

with their Catalan heritage, one finds composer Xavier Montsalvatge exploring the beauty ofAfrican music in his Cinco Canciones Negras (Five Negro 

Songs) of 1945, and Miro examining the beauty ofAfrican women in his

painting Une Etoile caresse le sein d’une negresse (A Star Caresses the Breast

of a Negress) from 1938.

9
Childlike innocence and delight in non-sequiturs finds its way into music 

in the songs selected from the works Catalan composer Frederic Mompou,

including “Jo et pressentia com la mar (Combat del somni)” (I Had a Premonition of You like the Sea (Battle ofthe Dream) and “Hevesdins la lluna”

(Drunken Rabbits on the Moon). Childlike delight in exaggeration can be

seen in the gigantic tapestry Woman, a collaboration between Miro and

weaver Josep Royo, which was commissioned in 1976 for the East Building

ofthe National Gallery of Art. The tapestry, now in storage, is pictured on

the cover ofthis program.

Whatever the implications there might be in his numerous paintings of

anonymous female figures, some abstractly represented and others overtly

sexual, Miro was in fact a happily married man. He and Pilar Juncosa were

married fifty-four years; their daughter, Maria Dolores, was born in 1930.

The recital ends with reference to this happy aspect of Miro’s life, with two

songs from Philip Cannon’s Cinq Chansons de Femme (Five Womanly Songs).

La bien Aimee tells of a much-loved woman who is convinced she was “born

under a lucky star.” La bien Mariee is a jolly song sung by a married lady who

is just a little tipsy at the moment.

Program notes by Charlotte de Rothschild

10

Upcoming concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Cuarteto Quiroga

Music by Gerhard, Toldra,

and Schoenberg

May 20, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Jack String Quartet

Music by Bach, Kurtag, Machaut,

Reynolds, and Xenakis

June 3, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Rosa Lamoreaux, soprano

William Sharp, baritone

Music by Samuel Barber

and other composers

June 10, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court
Stairway to Paradise

Texts

Le travail du peintre -Joan Miro

Paul Eluard 1895-1952

Soleil de proie prisonnier de ma tete

Enleve la colline, enleve la foret,

Le del est plus beau que jamais.

Les libellules des raisins 

Lui donnent des formes precises 

Que je dissipe d’un geste.

Nuages du premier jour,

Nuages insensibles et que rien n’autorise,

Leurs graines brulent

Dans les feux de paille de mes regards.

A la fin, pour se couvrir d' une aube

II faudra que le ciel soit aussi pur que la nuit.

The predatory sun is imprisoned in my head

Removing the hill and the forest,

The sky is never more beautiful.

The dragonflies are like grapes

With a precise form that I dispel with a gesture.

Clouds ofthe first day,

That nothing has authorized,

Their seeds bum like pale fire in my eyes.

Finally, so that one can discover the dawn

The sky should clear and become as pure as the night.

A sa guitare

Pierre de Ronsard 1524-1585

Ma guitare, je te chante,

Par qui seule je degois,

Je romps, j'enchante

Les amours que je regois.

Au son de ton harmonie

Je rafraichis ma chaleur,

Ma chaleur, flamme infinie,

Naissante d'un beau malheur.

I sing to the sound of my guitar with which I deceive or enchant my loves. As I hear the harmonies it reawakens my passion with warmth bom of a beautiful sorrow.

Early in the morning

Robert Silliman Hillyer 1895-1961

Early in the morning 

Of a lovely summer day,

As they lowered the bright awning 

At the outdoor cafe,

I was breakfasting on croissants

And cafe au lait

Under greenery like scenery,

Rue Frangois Premier.

They were hosing the hot pavement 

With a dash offlashing spray 

And a smell ofsummer showers 

When the dust is drenched away.
Under greenery like scenery,

Rue Francois Premier.

I was twenty and a lover

And in Paradise to stay,

Very early in the morning

Of a lovely summer day.

La Diva de 1’Empire

Dominique Bonnaud 1864-1943 and Numa Bles 1871-1917

Sous le grand chapeau Greenaway,

Mettant l'eclat d'un sourire,

D'un rire charmant et frais

De baby etonne qui soupire,

Little girl aux yeux veloutes,

C'est la Diva de l'Empire.

C'est la rein' dont s'eprennent

Les gentlemen

Et tous les dandys

De Piccadilly.

Dans un seul "yes" elle met tant de douceur 

Que tous les snobs en gilet a coeur,

L'accueillant de hourras ffenetiques,

Sur la scene lancent des gerbes de fleurs,

Sans remarquer le rire narquois 

De son joli minois.

Elle danse presque automatiquement 

Et souleve, oh tres pudiquement,

Ses jolis dessous de fanffeluches,

De sesjambes montrant le ffetillement.

C'est a la fois tres tres innocent 

Et tres tres excitant.

Under her “Greenaway” hat, the Diva de l’Empire has a velvety, wide-eyed innocent sort-of smile, full of

sweetness and laughter. She’s the Queen with whom all the dandies of Piccadilly fall in love. These snobs

welcome her with frantic “hurrahs” and throw bouquets on to the stage without noticing the rather mocking and

ironical expression on her pretty little face. She dances automatically, raising her frilly petticoats and showing

her legsjust enough to make it still innocent but very exciting.

Els Segadors. Himne Nacional de Catalunya

Catalunya, triomfant

tomera a ser rica i plena!

Endarer a questa gent

tant ufana i tant soperba!

Bon cop de falq!

Bon cop de falq quan vulguin moure brega!

Bon cop de falq!

Ara es hora, segadors!

Ara es hora d'esta alerta!

Per quan vingui un altre Juny 

esmolem ben be les eines!

Bon cop de falq!

Bon cop de fal? si-1 blat ens volen pendre!

Bon cop de falq!

Que tremoli l'enemic
en veient la nostra ensenya

com fem caure espigues d'or,

quan conve seguem cadenes.

Bon cop de fal?!

Bon cop de falg, defensors de la terra!

Bon cop de fal?!

Triumphant Catalonia, you will rise again to become rich and powerful, give a good stroke ofthe sickle,

defenders ofthe land ! Now is the time, ye reapers, to be on your guard and make sure your tools are sharp. Let

the enemy tremble upon seeing our flag; for just as we make the golden ears of com fall to our scythe, when it is

necessary we will cut the chains ofslavery!

Sure on this shining night

James Agee 1905-1955

Sure on this shining night

Ofstar-made shadows round,

Kindness must watch for me

This side the ground.

The late year lies down the north.

All is healed, all is health.

High summer holds the earth.

Hearts all whole.

Sure on this shining night

I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone

Ofshadows on the stars.

Silver

Walter de la Mare 1873-1956

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws ofsilver sleeps the dog;

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Aria from St Matthew Passion: Break in grief

Break in grief, Thou loving heart;

For a son whom Thou has cherished,

Gathers cruel foes around Thee,

And will like a serpent wound Thee.

For a son whom Thou has nourished,

Yea, a friend whom Thou hast cherished,

Gathers cruel foes around Thee,

And will like a serpent wound Thee.

Prelude from Cello Suite BWV 1107

Die Nachtigall
Christian Reinhold 1813-1856

O Nachtigall,

dein siiBer Schall,

er dringet mir durch Mark und Bein.

Nein, trauter Vogel, nein!

was in mir schafft so siiBe Pein,

das ist nicht dein,

das ist von andem, himmelschonen, 

nun langst fur mich verklungenen Tonen

in deinem Lied ein leiser Widerhall!

O nightingale, your sweet song 

penetrates my very being and bones.

No, beloved bird, no! It is not your fault

That I should suffer such sweet pain,

It is something else:

Some other heavenly, beautiful long forgotten notes

That find a soft echo in your song.

How beautiful is the rain

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-1882

How beautiful is the rain!

After the dust and heat,

In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

Canticel

Josep Camer 1884-1971

Per una vela en el mar blau

Daria un ceptre,

Per una vela en el mar blau

Ceptre i palau.

Per Tala lieu d’una virtut

Mon goig daria

Y el tros que em resta,

Mig romput, de juventut.

Per una flor’ de romani

L’amor daria 

Per una flor’ de romani

Tamor doni.

I would give a sceptre and a palace to be able to sail on the blue sea. I would give up my happiness and the last

remaining fragment ofmy youth just so that I could see a virtuous face. I would give my love just as I once

gave my love, for a flower ofrosemary.

Canqo del Teuladi (Cuatre cannons en llengua catalane)

Teodoro Llorente Olivares 1836-1911

Joyos cassador, passa;

Busca mes brava cassa

I deixam quiet a mi,

Jo soch Tamich de casa,

Jo soch lo teuladi.
Jo no tinch la ploma de la cademera

Que d’or i de grana tiny la primavera ;

No tinch la veu dolqa que te ‘1 rossinyol;

Ni de 1’oronetajoliva i lleugera

Les ales que creuen la mar d’un sol vol.

De parda estamenya, sens flors, sense llistes,

Vestit pobre duch;

Mes penes i glories, alegres o tristes,

Les cante com puch.

Les aligues niuen damunt de la roca

Del gorch qu’entre timbes aizampla la boca ;

En branca fullosa lo viu passarell;

La tortora en l’arbre que ja obri la soca,

La gralla en els runes d’enfonsat castell.

Jo al home confie la meua niuada,

I pobre i panruch,

Entre la familia, baix de la teulada,

M’ampare com puch.

Joyful hunter, go on past; find a better prey and leave me alone,

I am the friend ofthe house, I am the sparrow.

I do not have the bright gold and scarlet plumage ofthe goldfinch,

Nor do I have the gentle voice ofthe nightingale or the wings ofthe swift swallow

Who is able to cross the ocean in a single flight.

I am dressed poorly in grey serge, with no colour or stripes,

And I sing about my sorrow and joy, as best as I can.

Eagles nest on the rocks between cliffs, in the gorge that widens its mouth;

The linnet lives among leafy branches; the turtledove lives in the split tree trunk,

The crows live in a crumbling castle ruin.

But I live under the roof, humbly and simply I shelter as best as I can, since it is to man I entrust my brood.

INTERVAL

The Sun whose rays

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert 1836-1911

The sun, whose rays

Are all ablaze

With ever living glory,

Does not deny His majesty 

He scorns to tell a story!

He don’t exclaim “I blush for shame,

So kindly be indulgent!”.

But, fierce and bold, in fiery gold,

He glories all effulgent!

I mean to rule the earth,

As he the sky

We really know our worth,

The sun and I!

Observe his flame,

That placid dame,

The moon’s celestial highness;

There’s not a trace

Upon her face

Of diffidence or shyness:

She borrows light,
That thro’ the night,

Mankind may all acclaim her,

And truth to tell,

She lights up well,

So I for one, don’t blame her.

Ah, pray make no mistake,

We are not shy;

We’re very wide awake!

The moon and I!

Farewell to a Japanese Buddhist Priest Bound Homeward

Translated from the Chinese by Witter Bynner 1881-1968

You were fore-ordained to find the source,

Now, tracing your way as in a dream

There where the sea floats up the sky,

You wane from the world in your fragile boat

The water and the moon are as calm as your faith,

Fishes and dragons follow your chanting,

And the eye still watches beyond the horizon

The holy light of your single lantern.

Cancion de cuna para dormer a un negrito

Ildefonso Pereda Valdes 1899-1996

Ninghe, ninghe, ninghe tan chiquitito,

El negrito que no quiere dormir.

Cabeza de coco, grano de cafe.

Con lindas motitas,

Con ojos grandotes como dos ventanas que miran al mar.

Cierra los ojitos,

Negrito asustado,

El mandinga bianco te puede comer.

jYa no eres esclavo!

Y si duermes mucho

El senor de casa promete complar traje con botones

Para ser un “groom”.

Ninghe, ninghe, ninghe duermete negrito,

Cabeza de coco, grano de cafe

Go to sleep little black child, your head looks like a small coconut or a grain of coffee. Your eyes are wide open

like two windows overlooking the sea. Close your eyes and don’t be afraid, you are no longer are slave! If you

go to sleep you will get a fine suit with buttons so you can be a “groom”.

Jo et pressentia com la mar (Combat del somni)

Josep Janes 1913-1959

Jo et pressentia com la mar i com el vent immensa lliure,

Alta damunt de tot atzar i tot desti.

I en el meu viure com el respir.

I ara que et tine veig com el somni et limitava.

Tu no ets un nom ni un gest.

No vine a tu com a l’imatge blava d’un somni huma.

Tu no ets la mar que es presonera dins de platges,

Tu no ets el vent, pres en l’espai.

Tu no tens limits ; no hi ha, en car,

Mots per a dirte, ni paisatges per se el teu mon ni seran mai.
I sense you are immense like the sea and the wind, free and tall above everything.

I can now see how small you were in my imagination but how different in real life.

You are not simply a name or a gesture. I come to you as the blue image of a human dream.

You are not a prisoner by the seashore, you are not captured by the wind,

You have no limits and there are no words to describe you nor enough landscapes to hold your image.

Comntines No 3 (Hevistdins la lluna)

Hevistdins la lluna tres petits conills

Que m’enjaven prunes com uns tres desvergonyits

Tot dient

Mestressa po seu nos un got ben pie de vi.

I saw three little rabbits on the moon. The three rascals were eating prunes. They each had a pipe in their 

mouth and a glass in their hands which they raised, saying; “Mistress, please give us a big glass ofwine!”

La bien aimee (A girl whose love shines fair)

Anon

Suis sous bonne etoile nee,

Carj’ai bel ami.

J’aime bien et suis aimee,

Et j’ai mon amour donnee 

A celui qui beaucoup m’ agree,

Je lui dois merci.

Toujours m’a sa foi portee 

Et servie et honoree ;

Et bien sais que folle pensee 

N’a jamais nourri.

Sauve mon honneur gardee,

Lui sera abondonnee 

Mon amour, qu’il a desiree ;

Mon coeur est a lui.

I was bom under Fortune’s star. I love and am loved by one who has given me great happiness and for that 1

give him many thanks. He’s always faithful and courteous, and never thinks anything bad about me. For all

that, I will continue to guard my honour while giving him my whole heart!

La bien mariee (The merry wife)

Olivier Basselin 15th Century

Mon mary a, que je crois,

Par ma foi,

Le gosier de chair salee,

Car il ne peut respirer,

Ni durer,

Si sa gorge n’est pas moillee.

Lorsqu’il est un grand courroux,

Voulez-vous

Lui adoucir le courage,

Faites-lui tant seulement 

Promptement

Boire quelque bon breuvage.

Pourvu qu’il ne vende rien 

De son bien,