Recital: Ruoxi Peng '21 BM, Soprano

Se tutti i mali miei

Se tutti i mali miei
Io ti potessi dir,
Divider ti farei
Per tenerezza il cor.
In questo amaro passo
Si giusto è il mio martir
Che, se tu fossi un sasso,
Ne piangeresti ancor.

Pietro Metastasio

If all my wounds

If all my wounds
I were able to tell you,
It would tear apart
Your heart from tender sympathy.
On this bitter path
My torment is so unmistakable
That even if you were made of stone,
You would still be moved to tears.

Literal translation © 2010 by
Bard Suverkrop

Nimmersatte Liebe

So ist die Lieb! So ist die Lieb!
Mit Küssen nicht zu stillen:
Wer ist der Tor und will ein Sieb
Mit eitel Wasser füllen?
Und schöpfst du an die tausend Jahr,
Und küssest ewig, ewig gar,
Du tust ihr nie zu Willen.

Die Lieb, die Lieb hat alle Stund
Neu wunderlich Gelüsten;
Wir bissen uns die Lippen wund,
Da wir uns heute küssten.
Das Mädchen hielt in guter Ruh,
Wie’s Lämmlein unterm Messer;
Ihr Auge bat: „Nur immer zu!
Je weher, desto besser!“

So ist die Lieb! und war auch so,
Wie lang es Liebe gibt,
Und anders war Herr Salomo,
Der Weise, nicht verliebt.

Eduard Mörike


 

Das verlassene Mägdlein

Früh, wann die Hähne krähn,
Eh’ die Sternlein schwinden,
Muss ich am Herde stehn,
Muss Feuer zünden.

Schön ist der Flamme Schein,
Es springen die Funken;
Ich schaue so darein,
In Leid versunken.

Plötzlich, da kommt es mir,
Treuloser Knabe,
Dass ich die Nacht von dir
Geträumet habe.

Träne auf Träne dann
Stürzet hernieder;
So kommt der Tag heran—
O ging’ er wieder!

Eduard Mörike

 

Die Spröde

An dem reinsten Frühlingsmorgen
Ging die Schäferin und sang,
Jung und schön und ohne Sorgen,
Daß es durch die Felder klang,
So la la! le ralla!

Thyrsis bot ihr für ein Mäulchen
Zwei, drei Schäfchen gleich am Ort,
Schalkhaft blickte sie ein Weilchen;
Doch sie sang und lachte fort,
So la la! le ralla!

Und ein andrer bot ihr Bänder,
Und der dritte bot sein Herz;
Doch sie trieb mit Herz und Bändern
So wie mit den Lämmern Scherz,
Nur la la! le ralla!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Die Bekehrte

Bei dem Glanz der Abendröte
Ging ich still den Wald entlang,
Damon saß und blies die Flöte,
Daß es von den Felsen klang,
So la la!

Und er zog mich zu sich nieder,
Küßte mich so hold, so süß.
Und ich sagte: “Blase wieder!”
Und der gute Junge blies,
So la la!

Meine Ruh’ ist nun verloren,
Meine Freude floh davon,
Und ich hör’ vor meinen Ohren
Immer nur den alten Ton,
So la la, le ralla!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Er ist‘s

Frühling lässt sein blaues Band
Wieder flattern durch die Lüfte;
Süße, wohlbekannte Düfte
Streifen ahnungsvoll das Land.

Veilchen träumen schon,
Wollen balde kommen.
Horch, ein Harfenton!
Frühling, ja du bist’s!
Dich hab ich vernommen!

Eduard Mörike

Insatiable love

Such is love! Such is love!
Not to be quieted with kisses:
What fool would wish to fill a sieve
With nothing else but water?
And were you to draw water for some thousand years,
And were you to kiss for ever and ever,
You’d never satisfy love.

Love, love, has every hour
New and strange desires;
We bit until our lips were sore,
When we kissed today.
The girl kept nicely quiet and still,
Like a lamb beneath the knife;
Her eyes pleaded: “Go on, go on!
The more it hurts the better!”

Such is love! and has been so
As long as love’s existed,
And wise old Solomon himself
Was no differently in love.

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk

 

The forsaken servant-girl

Early, when the cocks crow,
Before the tiny stars recede,
I must be at the hearth,
I must light the fire.

The flames are beautiful,
The sparks fly;
I gaze at them,
Sunk in sorrow.

Suddenly I realise,
Faithless boy,
That in the night
I dreamt of you.

Tear after tear
Then tumbles down;
So the day dawns –
O would it were gone again!

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk


Coy

On the clearest of spring mornings
The shepherdess went out and sang,
Carefree, young and beautiful,
Till it echoed through the fields,
So la la! le ralla!

Thyrsis offered her for a kiss
Two, three lambs without delay,
She looked on archly for a while;
But went laughing and singing on her way,
So la la! le ralla!

And another offered ribbons,
And a third bid his heart;
But she made fun of heart and ribbons,
As she had done with the lambs,
Only la la! le ralla!

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk


Converted

In the red glow of sunset
I wandered quietly through the wood,
Damon sat and played his flute,
Making the rocks resound,
So la la!

And he drew me down to him,
Kissed me so gently, so sweetly.
And I said: ‘Play once more!’
And the good lad played,
So la la!

Now my peace is lost,
My joy has flown away,
And ringing in my ears I hear
Nothing but the old refrain,
So la la, le ralla!

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk


Spring is here

Spring is floating its blue banner
On the breezes again;
Sweet, well-remembered scents
Drift portentously across the land.

Violets, already dreaming,
Will soon begin to bloom.
Listen, the sound of a harp!
Spring, that must be you!
It’s you I’ve heard!

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk

Pantomime

Pierrot, qui n’a rien d’un Clitandre,
Vide un flacon sans plus attendre,
Et, pratique, entame un pâté.

Cassandre, au fond de l’avenue,
Verse une larme méconnue
Sur son neveu déshérité.

Ce faquin d’Arlequin combine
L’enlèvement de Colombine
Et pirouette quatre fois.

Colombine rêve, surprise
De sentir un coeur dans la brise
Et d’entendre en son coeur des voix.

Paul Verlaine



Clair de lune

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau,
Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Paul Verlaine



Pierrot

Le bon Pierrot, que la foule contemple,
Ayant fini les noces d’Arlequin,
Suit en songeant le boulevard du Temple.
Une fillette au souple casaquin
En vain l’agace de son œil coquin;
Et cependant mystérieuse et lisse
Faisant de lui sa plus chère délice,
La blanche lune aux cornes de taureau
Jette un regard de son œil en coulisse
À son ami Jean Gaspard Deburau.

Théodore de Banville



Apparition

La lune s’attristait. Des séraphins en pleurs
Rêvant, l’archet aux doigts, dans le calme des fleurs
Vaporeuses, tiraient de mourantes violes
De blancs sanglots glissant sur l’azur des corolles.
—C’était le jour béni de ton premier baiser.
Ma songerie aimant à me martyrisera
S’enivrait savamment du parfum de tristesse
Que même sans regret et sans déboire laisse
La cueillaison d’un Rêve au cœur qui l’a cueilli.
J’errais donc, l’œil rivé sur le pavé vieilli,
Quand avec du soleil aux cheveux, dans la rue
Et dans le soir, tu m’es en riant apparue
Et j’ai cru voir la fée au chapeau de clarté
Qui jadis sur mes beaux sommeils d’enfant gâté
Passait, laissant toujours de ses mains mal fermées
Neiger de blancs bouquets d’étoiles parfumées.

Stéphane Mallarmé

Pantomime

Pierrot, who is no Clitandre,
Gulps down a bottle without delay
And, being practical, starts on a pie.

Cassandre, at the end of the avenue,
Sheds an unnoticed tear
For his disinherited nephew.

That rogue of a Harlequin schemes
How to abduct Colombine
And pirouettes four times.

Colombine dreams, amazed
To sense a heart in the breeze
And hear voices in her heart.

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk


Moonlight

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Bewitched by masquers and bergamaskers,
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises.

Singing as they go in a minor key
Of conquering love and life’s favours,
They do not seem to believe in their fortune
And their song mingles with the light of the moon,

The calm light of the moon, sad and fair,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in their rapture,
Tall and svelte amid marble statues.

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk


Pierrot

Good old Pierrot, watched by the crowd,
Having done with Harlequin’s wedding,
Drifts dreamily along the boulevard of the Temple.
A girl in a flowing blouse
Vainly leads him on with her teasing eyes;
And meanwhile, mysterious and sleek,
Cherishing him above all else,
The white moon with horns like a bull
Ogles her friend
Jean Gaspard Deburau.

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk


Apparition

The moon grew sad. Weeping seraphim,
dreaming, bows in hand, in the calm of hazy
flowers, drew from dying viols
white sobs that glided over the corollas’ blue.
—It was the blessed day of your first kiss.
My dreaming, glad to torment me,
grew skillfully drunk on the perfumed sadness
that—without regret or bitter after-taste—
the harvest of a Dream leaves in the reaper’s heart.
And so I wandered, my eyes fixed on the old paving stones,
when with sun-flecked hair, in the street
and in the evening, you appeared laughing before me
and I thought I glimpsed the fairy with her cap of light
who long ago crossed my lovely spoilt child’s slumbers,
always allowing from her half-closed hands
white bouquets of scented flowers to snow.

Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder- www.oxfordlieder.co.uk

越人歌

今夕何夕兮, 搴洲中流，
今日何日兮, 得与王子同舟。
蒙羞被好兮, 不訾诟耻，
心几烦而不绝兮, 得知王子。
山有木兮木有枝，
心说君兮君不知。

春秋时期民歌
 

The Song of the Yue Boatman

Oh, What night is tonight, We are rowing on the river
Oh What day is today, I get to share a boat with a prince
The prince’s kindness makes me shy, I take no notice of the people’s mocking cries
Ignorant, but not uncared for, I make acquaintance with a prince
There are trees in the mountains and there are branches on the trees,
I adore you, oh! You do not know.

The text was written 2500 years ago

玛依拉变奏曲

人们都叫我玛依拉，诗人玛依拉
牙齿白，声音好，歌手玛依拉
高兴时唱上一首歌
弹起冬不拉，冬不拉
来往人们挤在我的屋檐底下
玛依拉，拉依拉，哈拉拉库拉依拉
拉依拉，哈拉拉库拉依拉呀啦，啦啦啦

我是瓦利姑娘，名叫玛依拉，哈——
白手巾四边上绣满了玫瑰花，哈——
年轻的哈萨克人人羡慕我
谁的歌声来和我比一下
哈——

白手巾四边上绣满了玫瑰花
等待我的情人弹响冬不拉
年轻的哈萨克来到我的家
谁的歌声来和我比一下
谁的歌声来和我比一下
哈——

牙齿白，声音好，歌手玛依拉
高兴时唱上一首歌
弹起冬不拉，冬不拉
来往人们挤在我的屋檐底下
拉依拉，拉依拉，哈拉拉库拉依拉
拉依拉，哈拉拉库拉依拉呀呀，啦啦啦
哈——
玛依拉

哈萨克族民歌

Mayila Variations

People call me Mayila, Mayila the poetess,
With White teeth and a beautiful voice, The singer Mayila,
When happy, I burst out in song,
I play my dongbula, my dongbula,
People crowed under the caves of my house,
Mayila, la yi la, halalaku la yi la
halalaku la yi laya la, la la la

I am a girl from Wali, my name is Mayila, ha—-
My Kerchief is embroidered with roses, ha—-
Every young Cossack envies me,
Come, who can outsing me,
Ha————-

My Kerchief is embroidered with roses,
I wait for my lover to play the dongbula,
Young Cossacks come to my house,
Come, who can outsing me,
Come, who can outsing me,
Ha———-

With White teeth and a beautiful voice, The singer Mayila,
When happy, I burst out in song,
I play my dongbula, my dongbula,
People crowed under the caves of my house,
Mayila, la yi la, halalaku la yi la
halalaku la yi laya la, la la la
Ha————


Xinjiang Folk Song