Notturno, Opus 44, Number 1, (TrV 197). 1899.

Notturno is a difficult text to deal with. It is a Ricahrd Dehmel poem set to music by Richard Strauss in 1899.  Part of the problem lies in the fact that there are mutliple versions of the Dehmel poem. Strauss based his lyrics on the original 1891 version titled " Erscheinung". There is an excellent wikipedia page on the Stauss setting, so I will not comment on the details. However, whilst there are translations of the original Dehmel poem, there is no generally available translation of the actual German text as set by Strauss. It is not easy to translate, and there are many possibilites. One example that troubled me was how to translate the refrain "der tiefen Wunde dunkles Mal". Dunkles mal can mean "dark times", but it can also mean "dark mark". I first translated it as "the Deep wound of dark times"; however, after discussions with German friends opted for "the dark mark of a deep wound". I have also tried to keep the translation so that it follows line by line the German: this is not always the best "free" English translation.

Nocturne

The moon hung high; the snowfield
Lay pale and dreary all around us,
Like my soul pale and empty,
For next to me, so silent and savage,
As rigid and cold as my distress,
As if he would never leave,
Stiffly, waiting, sat Death..

Again it came, still so mild,
So weary and gentle
In the distance of night.
So full of grief,
The breath of his violin came nearer,
And before me stood his silent image.

He who entwined me like a ribbon
So that my youth did not fall apart,
And that my heart might find the desire,
The great aimless longing.
So now he stands on the barren land,
And stands so sad and solemn,
And neither looked up nor greeted me,
Just letting his music float around
Crying through the cold fields;
And only staring at me
From his brow,
Like a pale and hollow eye,
The dark mark of a deep wound.

Gloomily swelled the gloomy song,
And grew hotter, gushing, swelling,
As hot and full,
As life that burns for love,
As love that screams for life,
And for unattained bliss,
So woefull, Swelling up,
The flowing song flooded;
And quietly, quietly bled and flowing together
Into the bleak snow-field, red and pale,
The dark mark of a deep wound.

And tired slid the tired hand,
And before me stood
A bleak day,
A distant, bleak day of youth,
When rigid in the sand
His withered bloom lay,
With his desire lost.
In his great melancholy
And his tired sadness,
He strode toward the goal;
Loudly wailed the weeping song,
Aching and flowing,
And the lament of his strings cut,
And his brow bled
Weeping with my souls distress,
As if I should hear a commandment,
As if I should rejoice in my suffering,
As if he wanted to feel my suffering
Feel together all the guilt of all suffering
And all the warm grace of life -
And weeping, bleeding he turned away
Into the bleak darkness and faded away

And with trembling I heard his song
Receding and escaping from me.
And how tender, trembling
The distant pleading of the long tones,
I felt a cold breeze rustling
And laden with dread
I felt an ominous quiet in the air,
And trembling, I wanted now to see him,
To see him listening,
He, who waited and sat with my misery,
And I turned -- there lay empty
The bleak field, silent and pale
Death too vanished into the darkness.

The moon hung high; gentle and tired
Into the empty night,
Vanished the pleading song,
And vanished, gone,
Was my dead friend’s pleading song.

Please note: as with all of these posts, I assert the copyright. However, I am happy for them to be used freely so long as they are attributed. "Translation by Huw Zosimos (2016)" with URL to this Blog is sufficient. Any suggestions or comments to improve the tranlsation are welcome!