Welcome to my "other" life as a classical singer!

Song texts for Lunchtime Concert - Mélodies a Midi - Helena 3 November 2018 at 12pm

Translations by Peter Low (with permission)

LOVE SONG
I love your eyes, I love your forehead, oh my rebellious and fierce one. I love your eyes, I love your mouth on which my kisses will tire themselves out.  I love your voice, I love the strange gracefulness of everything you say, oh my rebellious one, my dear angel, my hell and my paradise!  I love all that makes you beautiful, from your feet to your hair, you to whom my hopeful pleas ascend, oh my fierce and rebellious one!

MOONLIGHT
Your soul is a chosen landscape charmed by masquers and revellers playing the lute and dancing and almost sad beneath their fanciful disguises!  Even while singing, in a minor key, of victorious love and fortunate living they do not seem to believe in their happiness, and their song mingles with the moonlight,  the calm moonlight, sad and beautiful, which sets the birds in the trees dreaming, and makes the fountains sob with ecstasy, the tall slender fountains among the marble statues! 

ARIETTES OUBLIÉES

1. ECSTASY
It is languorous ecstasy, It is the fatigue after love, It is all the rustling of the wood, In the embrace of breezes; It is near the gray branches: A chorus of tiny voices.  Oh, what a frail and fresh murmur! It babbles and whispers, It resembles the soft noise That waving grass exhales. You might say it were, under the bending stream, The muffled sound of rolling pebbles.  This soul, which laments And this dormant moan, It is ours, is it not? Is it mine -- yes? -- and yours, Whose humble anthem we breathe On this mild evening, so very quietly?  

2. MY HEART WEEPS
There is weeping in my heart  like the rain falling on the town.  What is this languor  that pervades my heart?    Oh the patter of the rain  on the ground and the roofs!  For a heart growing weary,  oh the song of the rain!    There is weeping without cause  in this disheartened heart.  What!  No betrayal?  There's no reason for this grief.    Truly the worst pain  is not knowing why,  without love or hatred,  my heart feels so much pain.

3. THE SHADOW OF THE TREES
The shadow of the trees in the misty river  fades and dies like smoke;  while above, among the high branches,  the doves are lamenting.    Oh traveler, how well this pale landscape  mirrored you pallid self!  And how sadly, in the high foliage, your hopes were weeping,  your hopes that are drowned.  

4. WOODEN HORSES
Turn, turn, good horses of wood, turn a hundred turns, turn a thousand turns, turn often and turn always, turn, turn to the sound of the oboes.  

The red-faced child and pale mother, the boy in black and the girl in pink, the one pursuing and the other posing, each getting a penny's worth of Sunday fun.  

Turn, turn, horses of their desires, while the pickpocket's eye casts a surreptitious glance  - turn to the sound of the victory trumpet.

It is astonishing how it intoxicates you to go around this way in a stupid circle, empty stomachs, a dizzy head, feeling terrible and enjoying the crowds.  

Turn, wooden horses, with no need ever to use spurs to command you to gallop around, turn, turn, with no hope for hay.  

And hurry, horses of their souls-- there's the supper bell already; the night is falling and chasing home the troop of merry drinkers, famished by their thirst.  Turn, turn! The velvet sky is slowly clothed with golden stars. The church bell tolls sadly.

Turn, to the happy sound of drums.  Keep turning!

5. GREEN
Here - I've brought you fruit,  flowers, some leaves and branches, And -  my heart, which beats only for you. Do not tear it apart with your two white hands, And may my humble gift be sweet in your beautiful eyes!  

I arrive all coverered in dew, Which the wind of morning freezes on my forehead. Tired out, let me rest at your feet, Dreaming of intimate moments that will refresh me.  On your young breast allow my head to rest, Still ringing with your last kisses; Let it calm itself after the pleasant tempest, And let me sleep a little, since you are resting. 

6. SPLEEN
The roses were all red And the ivy was all black.  Dearest, when you become a little restless all my despairs reawaken.  The sky was too blue, too tender, The sea too green and the air too mild.  I am always afraid of what might happen, of some cruel flight of yours.  Of the green holly And the shining boxwood I am weary  And of the never-ending countryside, And of everything, except you. Alas!

​​BANALITÉS 

1. SONG OF ORKENISA
At the gates of  Orkenisa is a carter wanting in
At the gates of Orkenisa is a hobo wanting out
And the sentries hurry down and see his rags and bar his way
“What do you take from our city?” “Here I have left my heart.”
Then the sentries hurry out and ask about the other’s cart
“What do you bring to our city?” “My heart for my fiancée.”
Lots of hearts in Orkenisa! The sentries they laugh and laugh
“Vagabond, your road is shady. Waggoner, beware of love.”
And the sentries of the city knitting knitting,  full of pride
set the gates of  Orkenisa swinging  slow- - -ly closed.

2. HOTEL
My room is square and rather cage-like
The Sun can reach his arm in through the window
But as I want to smoke to fill the air with shapes
I light my cigarette in the fire of the day
I really don’t want to work
I want to smoke

3. WALLOON MOORLANDS
So many thoughts of such deep sadness
seized my heart on the desolate moors
when, tired, I  took from my back
(there among the fir-trees)
all the weight of all the miles
I’d walked in the wind’s constant howl.
   Having emerged from pretty woods
where squirrels had preferred to stay
my pipe and I tried to decorate with white puffs
a sky that kept a clear and stubborn blue
   On that damp moor I didn’t tell - a single secret
I only murmured one enigmatic song
  Heather with a honey-smell
gave pleasure to the   bees
while by my aching feet
were   bilberries, whortleberries in the grass
Sweet bride at the altar
   North North distorted  heath
with tough contorted trees
Life sinks its teeth - in death
voraciously   voraciously
as the wind growls.

4. OFF TO PARIS
Smile - all across my face, I’m leaving a dismal place
for Paree, pretty Paree
I’m  leaving a dismal    place
For Paree
Ah! to leave a dismal place,
how very charming!

5. SOBS
    Human love is ruled  by calm and lofty  stars
    We know that many men  are breathing in us
    They came from far a way and behind our brows we are one
This is the song of the dreamer  who had torn out his broken heart
and held it  high in his right  hand …
    Remember dear pride the many sights you’ve seen: 
    mariners who chanted like conquistadors
    the icy deeps of Thule or Ophir’s gentle skies
    people sick and accursed  or fleeing their shadows
    and the exultant  joy when the exiles returned
With blood flowing from his heart 
the dreamer  brooded on his wound so delicate so tender 
    No you will not break the chain of those causes
so very painful, and softly said:
    those outcomes of earlier causes
This heart of mine a broken heart
like all the hearts of all mankind
    Behold our hands that life made slaves of
has  died of love or  something like it
has  died of love as you can see
    For so it is with all things
Go tear your own hearts out like me
    And nothing will be free until the end of time
    Let’s leave it all to the dead
    while hiding our sobs.

THE EXQUISITE MOMENT
The silver moonlight gleams thro' the trees,
And voices sweet are borne on the breeze,
Voices of love.
O Dearest One,
The pool's deep waters mirror the sky,
And mournful willow bending nigh,
The tree of sorrow,
O blessed hour.
A sweet and holy peace from above
Comes down upon this blest hour of love.
 
IF MY VERSES HAD WINGS
My verses would flee, sweet and fragile,
To your garden so lovely,
If my verses had wings, Wings as the bird has. 
They would fly, these sparks,
To your laughing hearth,
If my verses had wings, Wings as the spirit has. 
To you, pure and faithful, They would hurry, night and day,
If my verses had wings, Wings as Love has!
 
THE LOVED ONE
They say, my dove, that you are still dead and dreaming beneath a tombstone;
but you awaken, revived, for the soul that adores you, oh pensive beloved! 

Through the sleepless nights, in the murmuring breeze, I caress your long veils,
your swaying hair and your half-closed wings which flutter among the roses. 

Oh delights!  I breathe your divine blond tresses! Your pure voice, a kind of lyre, moves on the swell of the waters and touches them gently, suavely, like a lamenting swan!
 
FETES GALANTES
The givers of serenades And the lovely women who listen
Exchange insipid words Under the singing branches. 

There is Thyrsis and Amyntas And there's the eternal Clytander, And there's Damis who, for many a Heartless woman, wrote many a tender verse. 

Their short silk coats, Their long dresses with trains, Their elegance, their joy And their soft blue shadows,  Whirl around in the ecstasy Of a pink and grey moon,

And the mandolin prattles Among the shivers from the breeze.