WHAT'S WRONG WITH ENGLISH?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 226, 22 October 1943, Page 6

WHAT'S WRONG WITH ENGLISH?

The Use Of Foreign Terms In Music

To The Editor Sir,-Is there any reason why directions in music should be given only in a foreign language-"allegro," "fortissimo," and so on? What is wrong with simple English words that everyone can pronounce and understand? I don’t believe the slightest harm would be done to the artistic standard of the broadcast programmes if someone ,went through and systematically translated all the foreign expressions that sound $0 meaningless even when they ate correctly pronounced. English would do me.

LET HER GO

(Wellington).

‘ We passed this letter to "Marsyas," whose reply follows: NGLISH would do me too if I thought the solution were so simple. Allegro ma non troppo, maestoso, brioso ed ardentemente, adagio assai poco sostenuto, lento assai cantante e tranquillo, piu mosso-what

can all this mean to the average listener? "Let Her Go" proposes good plain English in its stead. Now I agree that in most cases intelligent translation would help many listeners to gain access to the music that is described by these syllables. But let’s just take a look at what would happen if we got someone to "go through and = systematically translate all the foreign expressions." Obviously words such as sonata and ‘cantata have got to remain. We aren’t in the habit of using our past parti-. ciples as nouns, so we wouldn’t like it

very much if 2YA announced "Artur Schnabel playing Bethoven’s Sounded, almost a Fantasy, in C sharp minor, Opus 27, ‘No. 2, known as the Moonlight Sounded." And "soundings" wouldn’t be a very helpful ‘compromise either. But say we translate all the other words-the ones that aren’t part of the language, chiefly indications of time or expression. Let’s overlook for the moment the inevitably cosmopolitan nature of large orchestras, and decide to compel the Italian. flautist, the Viennese violinist, the French bassoonist, and the Jewish ‘cellist to learn the meanings of English equivalents for all the terms they have used for years (admittedly this difficulty wouldn’t arise in New Zealand). We will lay it down that if "allegro" in Italian means "merry" in English, then "merry" will do whenever the word appears above the stave. Result,, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, opening movement, the famous notes of "Fate": Allegro con brio= "Merry, with vigour."

Feasible? No sir, the word allegro cannot be translated for all purposes, because its meaning is not a matter of words. In fact it is hardly a thing of spoken language at all-it is merely a symbol by which a certain purely musical idea is communicated to a _performet; who doesn’t think of merriness at-all when he sees it on his score, but associates with it a certain feeling of movement, rhythm, and to some extent of mensurable speed-but never with a mood, or anything so specific as merriness; nor even with Milton’s L’Allegro, for how could we "come and trip it" in the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony? However, let us assume that these objections are insufficient, and "Let Her Go" still wants all his Italian words translated, including, of course, Largo and Andante Cantabile. It will have to be done literally, or we would be abusing the composer’s intentions. So a couple of typical announcements might sound like this:

"The time is 8.12 p.m., Now you will hear the Boston Promenade Orchestra playing Handel’ s Broad. . . Or, have just heard the Leslie Heward String Orchestra in the Going Singable from Tchaikovski’s String Quartet in D Major. .. ." When High Means Low So it’s hard to be consistent about this translating. But I still agree that there’s a case for it here and ‘there. I agree for instance that the Italian word for "high" seems an unduly euphemistic designation for what some-

one has called "a woman who sings low songs." But then altos were males once, poor wretches, and naturally they were thought of as high in relation to the basses and tenors, and the name stuck. Now that altos are actually the female voices of lower range, there’s a case for a new word, I’ve heard this particular section of a small choir consistently refer to itself at rehearsals as "the seconds," but if I were conducting a choir that might include a few draper’s assistants, I’d hesitate to adopt that term myself. It would be too much like a home truth to those altos who are really only sopranos unable to sing high notes. "Let Her Go" is not the first to decide against Italian. Beethoven did it once, and his Sonata in E Minor, Opus 90, has German expression indications. But he soon went back. And our professional musicians are familiar with Percy Grainger’s "louden lots," "to the fore," "accompanyingly," (Continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) "slowly, waywardly and very feelingly," "don’t drag,’ "Linger Slightly,’ and so on. Molly on the Shore in one edition is marked "Keep’4 accents in every bar hammering away throughout; also in the soft bits." But then Grainger gets muddled and instructs the violin "Mute off!" when four bars away he says "Senza Sord" (meaning precisely the same). His Marching Song of Democracy (For My darling Mother, United with her in Loving Admiration of Walt Whitman) shows, on the other hand, a scrupulous avoidance of the English language in its text, which consists of Ta da di ra da ta... tida ta rum pom pom pa... pam pum pum puri pa and so on-and nothing else! Above which, however, are such instructions as "easygoingly but richly," "not nasal," and "Don’t tire yourselves over this; keep fresh for what’s to come!" But he still uses # and Pp and so on, because they’re convenient when you have a cosmopolitan orchestra, and anyway they take up less space, being abbreviations already well known. Department of Slight Confusion As for "Dove Sono" from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, I would prefer some sort of translation to the title this song has been given lately--"The Dove Song." And Si mes vers avaient ailes is certainly more than we can expect from

an honest-to-goodness New Zealander who has taken up radio-operating as a job, and has been asked to do some announcing while he turns the records over, But think of all the instructions that would have to be sent out to prevent the name being translated as "If my worms were only winged"! | Cor Anglais, I admit, is a most unmusical series of sounds with which to designate a passable woodwind instrument. But since the Cor Anglais actually is neither a horn nor English (being in fact an jalto, or low oboe of Italian origin) why bring the absurdity nearer home by making the name intelligible? As for that French folksong (in the set "Songs of the Auvergne’) called

La Bas dans le Limousin. I am sure most of us would prefer the original title, howevef meaningless, to the version once given by 4YA: "Over there in the limousine." (Limousin, dear reader, is the district around Limoges, Auvergne, France.) But I don’t stick out for leaving all _ the French names in their original form too; Frenchness is a cult to be discouraged among composers of little pieces (morceaux) for the flute or the ubiquitous "soft-loud" (piano to you). For instance a recent concert of music by New Zealanders included a "Pastorale Fantasie" by which presumably was meant either "Fantaisie Pastorale"’ or "Pastoral Fantasy." But then it must always be a temptation to superimpose a taint of "that delicate gaiety which shows they come from the French," simply by adding e’s to the English title. All in all, ’'m with "Let Her Go’: his is the complaint of the common man against mystification and voodoo. He is fenced off from works of art that would readily reveal their logical beauty or their emotional force to him if only he could pick his way through that barbed entanglement of "tefms." The English alternatives are there in 90 per cent. of cases. But they all require careful thought and expert knowledge.

MARSYAS