Idylle en Bohême II

She used to dance more often back then, nearly every other night. A way to live out the city, traverse its cobblestones after all the shops had closed. When she saw that fragment of a film, it spoke to her about her own life.

Zrodil se za horou pramének málu
pospíchal dolů a spěchal vždy dál
když potom opustil své rodné scaly
klidnou a moudrou on řekou se stal


Řeka, ta zná a nepoví
jaký je sladký ten čas
když plyne soumrak medový
když loďka unáší nás

Břehy se ztrácejí ve tmách
v srdcích to šumí jak proud

Řeka, to zná a nepoví
že chceme do lásky plout



— Valčík from the film
La Libertée surveillée (1958)

Newly sprung from the mountain,
the little stream
Dashed down and coursed ever further
Leaving behind its native rocks,
A calm and wise river it became.

The river knows and does not tell
How sweet is the hour
When honey twilight falls
When the boat carries us away

The river shores are lost in the darkness
In the flowing murmur of our hearts

The river knows and does not tell
How we want to sail upon
the river of Love


— translation adapted from R.H.

Legends of the Rhine — The Lorelei

«Lorelei», 2011

Ich weiß nicht was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar;
Ihr gold'nes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewalt'ge Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh'.


Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lore-Ley getan.

— Heinrich Heine, Die Lore-Ley (1824)

I know not what it should imply,
That I am so forlorn;
A tale from times so long gone by
From my thoughts will not be torn.

The air is cool and it darkens,
And the Rhine does calmly flow;
The peak of the mountain sparkles
In the sinking sun's last glow.

The most beautiful maiden so
Alights, but wondrously up there.
It blazes, her golden bow,
She combs her golden hair.

She combs it with golden comb
And thereby sings a song;
A seeming wonder-tome
With a melodye violent-strong.

The seaman in his tiny yacht
It grasps with wilding woe,
He looks not at the rock-reefs
as he ought,
He looks only up from below.

I believe the swells do devour,
In the end, both skipper and skiff;
Smitten, in his final hour,
By the Lore-Ley with her riff.

— trans. Robert Clarke, 2001

Listen to the poem set to the haunting music of Liszt (1841),
interpreted by Joan Sutherland (1960),

or to the well-known melody by Silcher (1837), interpreted by Richard Tauber (1939)

the skies over Aachen

Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. - «Entreciel», 1979

Parlez-moi de la pluie et non pas du beau temps
Le beau temps me dégoûte et m’fait grincer les dents
Le bel azur me met en rage car le plus grand amour
Qui m’fut donné sur terre, je l’dois au mauvais temps
Je l’dois à Jupiter, il me tomba d’un ciel d’orage

Speak to me of the clouds, speak to me of the rain
Fair days drive me in rage, they go against my grain
The azure skies will only make me blue
For the greatest love to ever fall in my view
I owe to Jupiter and to his thunder coup
On the wings of a hurricane it blew.

— Georges Brassens, L'Orage (The Storm)


My love tells me that before the clouds of the Atlantic move inland over the continent, they first relieve themselves over Aachen and the Low Countries. That is why, evening and morn’, the cobblestones of the city glisten romantically and mirror the festive comings and goings of Christmastide.

At 10 o’clock in the morning, while we were seated at breakfast in one of the ornamental rooms of Café Van den Daele, a gust of wind brought a tinkering of rain against the windowpanes. Beyond the prism of hand-blown 17th-century glass, the pine wreaths and their twinkling lights swayed to and fro over the street below. They brightened and dimmed to the fluctuating hues of the lathered sky above. How rapidly the nimbus traversed the atmosphere, and the stratus and the cumulus, now cloaking, now revealing the city.

Dampness is perpetual in Aix-la-Chapelle, with water pouring from the sky and water welling from the earth; the Romans called the place Aquis-Granum or Aquis Villa. Granted, it was in reference to the thermal springs that made a spa town out of a marsh. Of all places, Charlemagne set his sights on Aix to be the heart of his Empire. “For the waters,” it was written. As the Romans had discovered, natural hot springs can be comforting when you are wintering in the company of 12,000 soldiers. And what about Aix-en-Provence rather?

One of the founding fathers of Europe, Charlemagne is called, making Aachen a European city par excellence. By his imperial will, the towering Carolus Magnus, son of Pepin the Short, built and shaped a city’s and a continent’s destiny. Under Constantine’s motto, “One Empire, one God, one Emperor,” he tore down the Irminsul of the pagan Saxons and erected instead an octagonal dome dedicated to the Virgin Mary, his own pillar to heaven beyond the clouds. And water fell in ever greater quantities, and the city prospered and became one of the most beautiful of cities north of the Alps, drawing luminaries and crowning kings and emperors for 600 years. And whereas the clouds take cue whenever they pass over the cathedral of Aachen, the Allied pilots took care to spare it during their bombardment of Germany in WWII.

Gazing out at the warped sky, we measure the fleeting thoughts of Europe and Empire and the Euro crisis….

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Bei mir bist du schön

I discovered Waldeck some time ago while searching for a tango nuevo-adapted piece called "Addicted to you." Since then, the copyright lawyer-turned Viennese DJ and his Ballroom Stories album has been on my favorite dance numbers list.

The mélange of hip-hop, jazz, electro with retro dance variété cannot fail to mesmerize.
Pour moi, tu es belle!

Die Moritat von Mackie Messer

Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, 1928


Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne
und die trägt er im Gesicht
und Macheath, der hat ein Messer
doch das Messer sieht man nicht.

An 'nem schönen blauen Sonntag
liegt ein toter Mann am Strand
und ein Mensch geht um die Ecke
den man Mackie Messer nennt.

Jenny Towler war gefunden
mit 'nem Messer in der Brust
und am Kai geht Mackie Messer
der von allem nichts gewußt.

Und Schmul Meier bleibt verschwunden
Und so mancher reiche Mann
Und sein Geld hat Mackie Messer
Dem man nichts beweisen kann

Und das große Feuer in Soho
sieben Kinder und ein Greis -
in der Menge Mackie Messer, den
man nicht fragt und der nichts weiss.

Und die minderjährige Witwe
deren Namen jeder weiß
wachte auf und war geschändet -
Mackie, welches war dein Preis?
Wachte auf und war geschändet -
Mackie, welches war dein Preis?


interpreted by Ute Lemper

--

The Ballad of Mack the Knife


And the shark has teeth like razors
All can read his open face
And Macheath has got a flick-knife, but
Not in such an obvious place

On a beautiful blue Sunday
There's a corpse stretched in the Strand
And a man goes round the corner
Mackie's friends will understand

Jenny Towler was discovered
With a knife stuck in her bowels
Mack the Knifes goes down the quayside
He ain't seen or heard a soul

Samuel Meyer has gone missing
Along with several wealthy men
Mack the Knife has got his money
Try to prove it if you can

There's a major fire in Soho
Seven kids, a down-and-out
In the crowd is Mack the Knife
Who no-one questions;
Don't know nowt!

And the lonely teenage widow
Known to all the local guys
She was raped and cut to ribbons
Mackie, how much was your price?

And the final verse Brecht added in the 1930 film:

Denn die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die andern sind im Licht.
Und man siehet die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht.

There are some who are in darkness
And the others are in light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight


I also love the English version by Louis Armstrong: