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17 Mar 19 - 12:47 PM (#3982677) Subject: Translation Req: From: keberoxu No, this is not 'trad-folk,' so no offense intended to anyone but the trad - folk specialists can stop reading here if they wish. The poet who wrote this was an aristocrat, born in Transylvania/Romania, turned professional in Budapest, and when the 1848 revolution didn't go his way, he relocated to Vienna. I will probably get wrong, the order of his multiple names. Last name(s) first, followed by first name: Petrichevich Horváth, Lázár 1807 - 1851 ISTEN HOZZÁD! Isten hozzád! hajh! te tőled Messze távozom! Ah! de képed' és szerelmed' Szűmbe hordozom. Lelkem érrte zálogul vedd 'S csak szerelmet adj; Adj cserébe hű szerelmet Csak szerelmet adj. Isten hozzád! lelkem érzi Hogy te mindenem -- Mindenem vagy -- és őrőkre! -- Mint az istenem. És ez érzetért te nékem Csak szerelmet adj; Ah! de végtelent -- de hűvet -- Hű szerelmet adj! The preceding poem concluded a letter from Petrichevich Horváth to "Emilia", dated April 20, 1839, in Buda-Pest. The letter appears in Volume II of the Kaleidoskop, vagy: Levelek Emiliához. This volume is, in turn, Volume 5 of Petrichevich Horváth Lázár Munkái, published in Buda-Pest at the author's expense in 1842. Google Books contains a digital file with a photocopy of the above book, from the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library) in Vienna. A future post will explain how this is relevant to classical music history in the 19th century. |
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17 Mar 19 - 02:06 PM (#3982685) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu If you have ever heard the version set to music, it most likely sounded like this: ISTEN VELED! Isten veled! hajh! te tőled Messze távozom! Ah! de képed' és szerelmed' Szűmbe' hordozom. Lelkem érte zálogul vedd 'S csak szerelmet adj; Ah! de hűvet hű szerelmet Csak szerelmet adj. In 1847, this version appeared as the lyric in a song by Franz Liszt, to my knowledge the only occasion on which Liszt set a Hungarian lyric to music. Catalogue no. S. 299 for solo voice and piano. |
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17 Mar 19 - 02:16 PM (#3982687) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: Joe Offer Darn! My Hungarian translator friend followed her husband to Wisconsin, and I lost contact with her. If you like, I can ask her to drop in, but maybe translate.google.com will suffice:
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17 Mar 19 - 02:19 PM (#3982689) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: Joe Offer
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17 Mar 19 - 02:22 PM (#3982691) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu Joe, thank you, Hungarian is not one of my languages so you did as well as I could have done. Anyone who has more Hungarian than Joe or me is still most welcome to join in. |
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17 Mar 19 - 02:48 PM (#3982698) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: Jack Campin Liszt would surely have published it with an accompanying German translation. |
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17 Mar 19 - 05:05 PM (#3982716) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu In fact, the whole business of Franz (Ferenc) Liszt composing a farewell-song in Hungarian, once you look at what historians have reported, says less about Liszt's sentiments toward Magyar roots and more about the three-ring circus that was this showman's life. But, to found this summary on fact, let's begin with said publishers. 1847 is the date of the earlier edition of "Lebe wohl." The publisher was based in Prague, and the publisher's name, Hoffmann. I have not seen this score and can say no more about this edition. Liszt is said to have looked at the score again, and to have made revisions of some sort or other, before the publication in Leipzig, by C. F. Kahnt, of his works, including this song. The date of the second, later edition is 1879, in Liszt's old age. This is the score I have seen, and it may be viewed digitally through the Petrucci Music Library website. In fact, by the time the Kahnt edition is published in Leipzig, the emphasis is on Liszt as a polyglot and not as a Magyar. The Kahnt edition of this particular song takes a composition for solo voice and piano which comes in at two or three pages, and makes it several pages longer. How? By including FOUR singable texts: The reworked, truncated Magyar of Petrichevich Horváth; 'Lebe wohl,' the German translation by Georg Gustav Zerffi, of whom more anon; a French translation; and finally an English translation. The English-language book Liszt: the Virtuoso Years does not mention, that I can make out, the Hungarian song, with or without the German translation. But what is reviewed in some detail in this book is the grand tour of 1846, spilling into 1847, that took Liszt throughout Central and Eastern Europe. It is easy to note the connection, in historical time, between the concert tour -- it turned out to be Liszt's farewell tour, in fact -- and the composition of "Isten veled"/"Lebe wohl." I have yet to succeed in my search for information on a première performance of the little song, no information on who was the chosen singer, nor in what venue in which city; if I knew, I would supply the information. Today, sound recordings exist of "Isten veled," although they are few -- I know there is one on Hyperion records. |
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17 Mar 19 - 06:01 PM (#3982725) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu If Franz Liszt's farewell to Central and Eastern Europe -- as a touring pianist virtuoso, at any rate -- saw him winding up his performing career in 1846 - 1847, Vienna was at the same time being vigilantly guarded by Metternich. Remember the poet, Petrichevich-Horváth? Before Liszt descended in all his glory upon Hungary, the aristocratic writer had busied himself with, amongst other things, a Hungarian translation of the poetry of Lord Byron, and in Budapest he was known for a dandy. He was the editor of a Hungarian-language periodical in which he savaged the poet Sandor Petofi who was unashamedly nationalist. Also working at this journal was Georg Gustav Zerffi, aspiring to a journalistic career. Zerffi's father, it is written, was responsible for changing the family name; it was previously Hirsch, and the father's ancestors, Jewish. In fact both men -- Petrichevich-Horváth and Zerffi -- answered to Vienna, maybe not directly to Metternich but most likely to Metternich's network of secret intelligence. It gives one pause to see these two journalists hurrying to welcome Franz Liszt to their part of Europe, brokering concert engagements for him, writing news reports covering record-breaking attendance at his concerts and describing the performances. And, like as not, keeping communications going between themselves and their masters in Vienna. When the smoke cleared, as it were, a Petrichevich-Horváth poem had been shortened from four stanzas to two and set to music by Liszt, accompanied by Zerffi's German translation. Liszt being Liszt, he made sure that his name was spelled correctly, and took the publicity in stride. |
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18 Mar 19 - 05:15 PM (#3982960) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu Zerffi, the journalist who spied for the Hapsburg regime, is not the translator who wrote the following German version. What follows was included in the book Ungarische Lyriker, from 1875. The lyric, as adapted and published with Franz Liszt's sheet music, was included with an assortment of other Hungarian poets; only the German translations, not the Hungarian originals, were printed. The German translator's name is Gustav Steinacker. Lebe wohl, lebe wohl! Ach! wie fern zieh' ich von dir, Doch dein Bild, dein süßes Bildnis, Trag' im Herzen ich mit mir. Nimm die Seele, nimm die Seele Als ein heilig Pfand dafür, Nur gib' Liebe, aber treue, Gib', ach, treue Liebe mir! |
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18 Mar 19 - 07:26 PM (#3982988) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: Jack Campin Presumably Petrichevich-Horvath was Croatian. Was Croatian his first language? Did a version of the poem in Croatian exist? |
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18 Mar 19 - 07:51 PM (#3982993) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu Yes, with a double last name that includes the name Horváth -- the Hungarian word for "Croatian" -- that is a logical presumption. I did pay attention to the questions to which this gives rise. My findings are negative. As the opening post reports, the birthplace of Lázár Petrichevich-Horváth was Cluj-Napoca; this is a population center of Transylvania, and today I find that it is inside Romania's borders. You may find an article on the author at Hungarian Wikipedia. Since I rely on Google to pull up Wikipedia articles, even though I have no Hungarian, I can use Google's translate function to read a rough English translation of the Hungarian Wikipedia article. Which tells me: the poet's early education and employment was in Targu Mures, Sibiu, and obviously Cluj-Napoca. In time he became a correspondent of the Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia. Wherever I find even a brief account of the author's life, one thing is emphasized, and it is not about Croatian ancestry. It is the emphasis on the author's aristocratic upbringing. Not only is no mention whatever made of Croatia, or of the Croatian language, but it seems that he moved in aristocratic circles where there were more French and German speaking people and a number of the people were not even really Hungarian at all. Not to speak of Croatian. So I guess it is safe to presume that ancestors must have included Croatians in the poet's case, but he seems to have inhabited a really rarefied atmosphere in Transylvania, then later in Pest, which did little to prepare him for life on his own in the real world. There is a "poete maudit" quality in the descriptions of the poet's career failures and personal alienations. Of course, if anybody else finds any information, even if it contradicts what I found, then please contribute! So, no, no sign of this poem in the Croatian language, to answer your final question, sorry about that. |
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20 Mar 19 - 11:46 AM (#3983384) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: Mrrzy Argh, my Hungarian friends are all from French-speaking places I have lived, and don't speak English. I can get it into French first but then we get the telephone game... |
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20 Mar 19 - 03:42 PM (#3983448) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: Jack Campin Cluj was Koloszvar back then - ruled by a Hungarian elite with French pretensions and with a Romanian working class (and a Roma underclass and a scattering of Jewish and Armenian bourgeois). German would not have been as commonly used as in Budapest. I'd bet most local poets would think in Hungarian. |
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22 Mar 19 - 05:26 PM (#3983967) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu I told a lie, I must confess, with my earliest mention, in this thread, of Franz Liszt. The poem, eventually altered to "Isten veled," was the first Hungarian-language text set to music by Liszt. However, it was not the last, I apologize for the error. When Liszt was an old man, no longer performing, mostly teaching, and composing a little, he set to music two texts by none other than Sandor Petofi, and highly patriotic texts they are, too. By then the battle in which Petofi, amongst the soldiers, disappeared, never to be seen again dead or alive, was long past; and Petofi, posthumously, was celebrated wherever Hungarian was spoken. Petrichevich-Horväth, on the other hand, was also long dead, and largely forgotten. |
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28 Mar 19 - 03:41 PM (#3984945) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu refresh? can anyone translate hungarian? |
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30 Mar 19 - 02:30 PM (#3985145) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: Monique Here is what a Hungarian friend of mine emailed me: May God be with thee! Alas! I am parting a long way from you! Ah! But I will carry in my heart Your face and your love. For all these, take my soul as a token And give me only love; Give me true love in return Give me only love. God be with thee! My soul feels That you are all All I have/am – and it is forever so! -- Just like my God. For this sentiment Give me only love; Ah! But let this love be eternal - and true - Give me true love! |
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30 Mar 19 - 02:55 PM (#3985149) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu Monique to the rescue! Thank you, thank you! |
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02 Apr 19 - 12:20 PM (#3985547) Subject: RE: Translation Req: Hungarian lyric From: keberoxu An historical site where the poet came from. Petrichevich Horvath Manor House |