Lennart Sjögren: 'En räv med skabb'

 

En räv med skabb

 

Du som tror på en lycklig värld

ge dig tid att en stund stanna

hos räven - den skabbitne.

 

Du skall se hur den ormlikt vrider sig

och biter sitt eget kött

du skall se ett stort sår där förut

var en kropp.

 

Och skabbens ägg öppnar sig

och de gläds en stund åt sitt nyvaknande

så som allt levande gör

i det brinnande såret har de sitt goda bo.

 

Frågan är

hur vi skall orka följa rävens färd

till sin långsamma och sönderrivna död

utan

att få ett ansikte av trä.

 

Långt före medeltidens spanska stövlar

dog djur så här

och de skall dö så här

och folk skall dö så här

och deras död skall vara mättad av plåga.

 

Bäst har de småleende och i själen blinda

sämst har räven i sin utdragna död

och allra sämst

har skabben som dör i brist på räv.

 

 

A fox with mange

 

You who believe in a happy world

take time to linger for a while

with the fox – one afflicted by mange.

 

You will see how it squirms like a snake

biting its own flesh

you will see one large wound where before

there was a body.

 

And the mange mite’s eggs open

and rejoice for a while in their new awakening

as do all living things 

they have their fine lair in the raging wound.

 

The question is

how are we ever to follow the fox’s journey

to its slow and ripped-up death

without

our faces turning to wood.

 

Long before the Spanish boot of medieval times

animals died like this

and they will die like this

and people will die like this

and their death will be saturated in torment.

 

Best fare the smiling and those blind of soul

worst the fox in its protracted death

and worst of all

the mange that dies for lack of fox.

B.S. Ingemann: 'Lysets Engel gaaer med Glands'

 

B.S. Ingemann's 'Morgensange for Børn' ( 1837) and 'Syv Aftensange' (1838) are among the most well-known poems in the Danish language, due in part to Weyse's fine musical arrangements of them. These morning and evening songs have a distinctly Romantic view of childhood and an idyllic atmosphere. Their language is on the whole simple, with the occasional archaic throwback to a 'kings and castles' mode. Aksel Schiøtz has recorded many of the songs, but, as so often happens with Weyse's 6/8 and 2/4 melodies, they are turned into plodding 4/4 and thereby lose a lot of their lightness and momentum. There is an interesting arrangement for soprano and contralto duet + piano of these songs by V.E. Bielefeldt - highly usable for church concerts I have discovered. Audiences gasp at the tempo, but the songs come to life.

 

Gleaming bright, light’s angel see

 

Gleaming bright, light’s angel see

pass through heaven’s portal.

All of night’s black shadows flee

at God’s angel’s radiance immortal.

 

God’s light in his eye, the sun

o’er the world is gliding:

see! God’s envoy has begun,

high above on golden clouds he’s riding.

 

O’er the earth the angel spreads

God’s skies in their gleaming,

in his cloak of gauze-like threads

he enfolds the world so gaily teeming.

 

Rich man, poor man, great and small,

on them both sun’s peeping,

from above he sees them all,

kisses infants in their cradles sleeping.

 

Us the angel from on high

too would be embracing;

us he smiles at from the sky,

as God’s heav’nly gleam he’s tracing.

 

Us too does our Lord hold dear:

on each soul he gazes;

in each sunbeam God is near

and he hears our joyous morning praises.

N.F.S. Grundtvig: 'Lovsang'

 

Lovsang

 

Alt hvad som Fuglevinger fik,

Alt hvad som efter Fugle-Skik

Med Sanglyd drager Aande,

Lovsynge Gud, for Han er god,

Og i sin Naade raader Bod

Paa Støvets Vee og Vaande!

 

Min Sjæl, du har af alt paa Jord

I Tanken og din Tunges Ord

De allerbedste Vinger,

Og friest er dit Aandefang,

Naar dybt du drager det i Sang,

Saa højt i Sky det klinger.

 

Hvad er vel og paa Jorderig,

Der sammenlignes kan med dig

I Trangen til Guds Naade?

Og det var dig, den ledte om,

Da med Vorherre hid den kom

Paa underligste Maade.

 

Saa vaagn da op, min Sjæl, bryd ud

Med Lovsangs Røst og priis din Gud,

Din Skaber og Gienløser,

Som saae til os i Naade ned,

Og over os sin Kiærlighed

Med Trøsteren udøser!

 

Og siig det til hver Fugl paa Jord,

Og siig til alle Engle-Kor,

Hvis Sang livsaligst klinger,

At du med dem i Væddestrid

Vil prise Gud til evig Tid

For Aande, Røst og Vinger!

 

 

Song of praise

 

All those who are with bird’s wings blessed,

All those who from a birdlike breast

Breathe songs with great elation,

Sing now God’s praise for goodness true

Who by his mercy can subdue

This brief life’s tribulation!

 

My soul, of all things on this earth

Your piercing thought and power of word

Are wings that are most willing,

And freest is your spirit’s span

When at full stretch with song it can

The firmament be filling.

 

And what can on this earth compare 

With your strong urge just everywhere

To seek God’s grace with passion? 

And you to find was its prime aim

When with Our Lord it hither came

In such a wondrous fashion.

 

Awake, my soul, and now arise

And praise your God in fitting wise,

Your Maker and your Saviour,

Who did in mercy on us gaze,

And with the Comforter displays

A love that will not waver!

 

And say this to each single bird,

To all angelic choirs e’er heard

Whose song’s sublime in merit,

You’ll seek to sing as perfectly

In praising God eternally

For voice and wings and spirit!

 

ZKV 115: 'Der Winter ist vergangen'

 

ZKV 115

 

Der Winter is vergangen

 

By chance, I rediscovered the voice of Hannes Wader yesterday and was transported back to the late 1980s, when I listened to his songs in German (and Plattdeutsch). A beautiful voice, highly expressive. So I dredged Spotify for the LP, but could not find it as such, but various album selections restored quite a few of the songs I had come to love. And one of them ‘Der Winter ist vergangen’ gave a double hit. For I recognised not only the German song but a Dutch medieval one, from the 1544 Antwerp song book. There are many variants on the theme of the song, but it is always May, the flowers are beginning to blossom, the nightingale is singing.

 

The winter is fast waning,

I see May’s growing power:

I see the green leaves straining,

The force in every flower.

In yonder verdant vale now

Is pleasure pure and true,

There sings the nightingale now

And birds of every hue.

 

There is often a wooer outside a castle wall, offering to plant his sprig of may birch (enough said). The maid tells him to plant it somewhere else in some versions. In other versions they are together at night, but the lover has to escape before dawn to avoid being discovered. A sympathetic night watchman is handy to have around.

 

Here you can find three poems translated from the Dutch/Flemish:

 

The day will soon be breaking

 

The dawn no longer remains concealed

 

Fair love, how come you’re still a-bed?

 

 

You can hear Hannes Wader sing the German song here.

 

(It starts with the same tune, sung by an Irishman, with a lovely accompaniment on the uilleann pipes)

Anneke Brassinga: 'Concerto'

CONCERTO

 

Als met schalmeien, gorgelpijp en orgelend

het aangeheven schoonlawaai bezingend ons

gekweld bestaan, teloorgaat in de vuilte,

volte van de straat – als tussen stof en stank

uit strot en galmbuis wellen ijle liederen,

welriekend klankenschuim bezield gewaand met

de melkwegfanfare die uitbarst in werelden

van etherischer aard; dan is er nog íets

waarin wij schone beesten zijn.

 

 

CONCERTO

 

If with shawms, gullet-pipe and loud warbling

the struck-up tuneful tumult praising our

anguished existence gets lost in the foulness,

fullness of the street – if among dust and stench

from throat and tooting brass tenuous songs well up,

sweet-scented sound-froth fanciedly inspired by

the milky-way fanfare that bursts out in worlds of

a more ethereal nature, then there is still something

by which we are clean lovely beasts.

 

 

Marie Dauguet: 'Sous la bise'

The bise can lead to high waves on Lake Geneva

 

Sous la bise

 

Sous la bise qui le knoute,

       Ecoute

Le bois se tordre et hurler

 

Et, dans un ciel sans lumière,

       Lanières,

La pluie fauve le cingler.

 

Fuyant l’atroce martyre

       Chavire

D’un coup le bois tout entier,

 

Puis soudain jusqu’en la nue

       Se rue,

Redressé d’un bond altier;

 

Mais le vent qui le décharne,

       S’acharne,

Mate sa rébellion;

 

Des feuillages que transperce

       L’averse

Le flamboyant tourbillon

 

Emplit l’air qui s’en effraie,

       La plaie

Rougit des bois flagellés;

 

Et voici de la hêtrée

       Vautrée

Des gouttes de sang gicler.

 

 

Under the bise*

 

Under the lashing cold bise,

       The trees –

Oh hear how they writhe and howl!

 

And, from a sky where light fails,

       Thick trails –

The fawn rain scourges their cowls.

 

Fleeing the imminent spate

       Of fate,

The whole wood just overturns,

 

Though up to the clouds then speeds

       Stampedes,

And haughtily fate now spurns.

 

But the wind which assails it,

       Flails it

Quelling its mutinous act;

 

The leaves are pierced by the rain

       Insane,

This swashbuckling cataract

 

Whirls through the air filled with dread,

       Turns red

The wound of the welted wood;

 

And here from the sprawling beech–

       Tree’s breach

One sees drops of spurting blood.

 

 

* The Bise is a specific European wind, also referred to by La Fontaine in his famous fable 'La cigale et la fourmi':https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bise

Klaus Høeck: 'études australes' (from: 'In Nomine')

A celestial map by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit, 1670

‘études australes’

 

 

and behind me stars

of glass and soda sparkle

behind my shoulder

 

that’s smoking with salt

behind my bedhead while i

am dreaming the stars

 

sparkle like crayfish

on the sea-bed of båring

vig the stars sparkle

 

like lightships there up

in the springtime night while i

am falling asleep

 

 

i have gathered the

dead around me in a cir

cle as around a

 

maypole for a dance

and a conversation they

cannot take part in

 

all the dead members

of my family around

me like statues that

 

move almost imper

ceptibly whenever i

do not gaze at them

 

 

and behind me the

stars sparkle like electric

welding over fun

 

en from the lindø

shipyards behind me the stars

toll for my ears out

 

from the spit ene

bærodde as if strangers

were going to be

 

evening guests or an

unexpected word in my

most recent poem

 

 

the dead also look

at me (at any rate from

their carbonised pho

 

tographs turned pale by

purgatory) or maybe

it is the other

 

way around that i

only move (am moved) when the

dead gaze at me and

 

that i otherwise

come to a complete standstill

in my memories?

 

 

and behind me the

stars plummet down cold and a

lien with sili

 

con from their orang

eries and from their enorm

ous celestial map

 

plunge into the realm

of my poems where they strike

my left foot or leave

 

behind them such words

as ‘carina’ or ‘puppis’

or as ‘canopus’

 

 

and behind me the

stars fall down from their winter

gardens fall down in

 

to ‘études australes’

from one star chart to anoth

er one and that is

 

the way the stars sound

then even harder and wild

er than emerald

 

that is the way the

stars sound in grete sultan’s

interpretation

 

 

nobody becomes

a good person just by dy

ing it is unfor

 

tunately not that

simple just as nobody

becomes an evil

 

person just by liv

ing it is not that simple

everyone has to

 

do it by themselves

both parts of their own free will

it’s that difficult

 

 

and behind me the

stars cast out dice over the

sky’s rough glass surface

 

like ice-cubes like the

coins in an I-ching throw

like the notes coming

 

from a steinway grand

piano like the sparks from

john cage’s pitu

 

itary gland like

crocodile tears like the last

words in the bible

 

 

i have gathered the

dead around me for life’s sake

(also the dead chaf

 

finches that flew in

to the window pane yester

day) life cannot un

 

equivocally

determine itself as life

the dead define us

 

in a way they are

what makes us living without

death there is no life

 

 

and behind me the

stars chime with death and necess

ity behind me

 

the stars ring out for

god – what if i were not to

turn around would i

 

then not be transformed

into a pillar of salt

or into a stone

 

plinth would my poem then

not be transformed into a

mourning cherry-tree?

 

 

Etudes Australes is a set of etudes for piano solo by John Cage, composed in 1974–75 for Grete Sultan. It comprises 32 indeterminate pieces written using star charts as source material.