Original Compositions / English Translations of Art Songs & Arias / Program Notes
Voyage à Paris (Guillaume Apollinaire)
Ah! la charmante chose
Quitter un pays morose
Pour Paris
Paris joli
Qu'un jour dût créer l'Amour.
A Trip to Paris
Ah! 'Tis such a charming thing
To head out from a dreary setting
For Paris!
Paris fairest
Which one day Love had to create.
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Hôtel (Guillaume Apollinaire)
Ma chambre a la forme d'une cage,
Le soleil passe son bras par la fenêtre.
Mais moi qui veux fumer pour faire des mirages
J'allume au feu du jour ma cigarette.
Je ne veux pas travailler - je veux fumer.
Hotel
My room has become like a cage is,
Through the window the sun casts his net.
But I just want to blow smoke mirages
So with the day's lighter I ignite my cigarette.
To me work's become a joke -- I'd rather smoke.
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Rosemonde (Guillaume Apollinaire)
Longtemps au pied du perron de
La maison où entra la dame
Que j’avais suivie pendant deux
Bonnes heures à Amsterdam
Mes doigts jetèrent des baisers
Mais le canal était désert
Le quai aussi et nul ne vit
Comment mes baisers retrouvèrent
Celle à qui j’ai donné ma vie
Un jour pendant plus de deux heures
Je la surnommai Rosemonde
Voulant pouvoir me rappeler
Sa bouche fleurie en Hollande
Puis lentement je m’allai
Pour quêter la rose du monde
Rosamond
Ling'ring at the steps leading up to
The house wherein went the ma'am
Whom lately I'd followed for two
Happy hours though Amsterdam
While my fingers flung kisses
Since the canal was deserted
As were its banks no one could see
Just how my kisses overtook
Her whom my life I'd bequeath'd
That day for more than two hours
So Rosamond 's the nickname I chose
With the hope of remembering
How in Holland her lips like flowers grow
Then slowly I departed
To seek out the world's own rose
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Mazurka (English translation of a 1949 French poem Louise de Vilmorin)
The bejeweled décolletée
And bright suns on ceilings,
The opaline frocks,
Mirrors and violins:
They go like so--go, go, go.
Out of hands tumbles a brooch,
A brooch that's just an excuse
Out of the hands of maidens
That vanish and go:
They go like so--go, go, go.
With a glance that will settle
With a wrinkle on the brow
Either fine weather or rain,
And with a roguish sigh
They go like so--go, go, go.
The ball's a frenzied tempest
Or else demure and footloose,
Just listen to each fickle one
Saying yes, saying no:
They go like so--go, go, go.
In this uncertain dance
The steps don't really matter.
Oh! The soft steps of discretion
Are puzzling silences to those
Who go like so--go, go, go.
A ball is the first place
Where burning fires unite.
When lovers have thus met
The snow melts so:
The snow melts so, so, so.