The Portland daily press., 1881-08-04
PRICE 8 CENTS.

as In sdiut and chdsts. The former Of thess
comes on a short note and thus syercomes Oh.
servation. The latter comes ON the capital
note OF the phrase, but how medestly ita glare
is toned down by the soft eh which precsdss,
and the mute which follows It'll The n
wadded, as 1t were, by these muftled sounds,
whereas the hard of the italian e0sto throWs
it into all the more brilliant prominence. Such
alteration of vowel and consonans sounds IN
the text Of q musical phrase Is often q matter
of great weight; it is very much of the nature
of changing the Instrumentation OF an orches-
tral phrase. Again, 1t is often extremely Inn
portant to preserve the order OF words In
sentence: In the long tenor scena In the third
his pilgrimage to Rome, there is phrase In
which Tannhauser cries for "Erl6gsun aus DEN
heiSsen Bdflden" (deliverance from the burning
chains) of passion. The tempestuous harmony
in the orchestra is illumined by radiant
chord of the sixth and fourth at the word erld,
sung (deliverancel which is followed by ter.
rible diminished seventh chord at the word
heiSsen (burning). Musical tillustration OF q
text can go no farther. In the English ver-
sion Of "Tannhauser" (Novello's edition) the
order of the words is so inverted that the Eng
lish word for heiSsea comes at the six four
chord, while the word for erLdsung comes On
the discord. That is to say, the whole sense Of
the-musio is changed to nonsense.
No doubt better translation might have
been made, and may still be made, TO satisfy
the demands of the conscientious English
singer; but the fact remains that the poor En-
giSh version criticised above actually exists,
and the chances are that English singers will
prefer using it to taking the trouble to procure
better one. And here we come to what Is,
after all, the strongest argument against udng
English translations of German, French or
Italian songs. The translations actually in
the market are, as q rule, very bad in them-
selves, beside being ill-adapted to the music.
Great composers. as rule, set pretty good po-
etry to music. The average translations Of
songs which are published in this country and
in England can lay no claim to being decent
poetry at all. Admitting that a complete ap-
probation of song is impossible il the text Is
not understood by the listener, is 1t not better
that the listener should get an incomplete i'm.
preston rather than wrong and utterly dis
torted one? Is 1t not better, while listening 70
Schumann's music, TO hear Heipe's Words
'Ich grolle niche,
Wens auch das Herr mir brisht.p
even without understanding them, than 70
have the whole impression Of the music spoiled
by hearing such unspeakable balderdssh ar
'I'll neer complain,
Fen though die with pain?"
In view Of the wretched poetic quality of the
large majority of English versions Of German,
French and Italian songs, we should say that
there can be but one valid excuse for using
these versions at all, and this is the singers In
ability to sing in foreign language. We re-
member one striking instance Of the vastly
superior effect of the original text Of song TO
that Of o translation. At performance of
Mozart's "Dcn Giovanni" at the Royal Opera
in Berlin, Madame Lrcca (Zerlina) was ericored
in the air, "Schmdhle, sctndhle, heber Junge',
In repeating the air she sang it in the original
Italian, "Bdtti, BATH, bel Mdsetto." 1t was
like light after darkness, grace after clumsi-
ness, poetry after prose. The mere phonetic
effect of language in singing is important.
What music lover, who has heard Tamberlik
sing "Don Ottavio" would wish to have the
word cieto in the maskers' trio changed 10
heaven?
One circumstance should not be forgotten.
In American audiences large number Of per.
sons do understand both French and German.
To impose the hearing Of poor English trans
lation upon such people is surely more cruel
unknown tongue. Here, as elsewhere, it may
be said, ITO him that hath shall be given"