SONG TRANSLATIONS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 18

SONG TRANSLATIONS

SCHUBERT AND SCHUMANN’ — SONGS AND TRANSLATIONS. "By Sir Robert Garran, G.C.M.G. ‘Melbourne University Press. SIR ROBERT GARRAN is a lawyer ~~ and scholar who has made music and poetry a life-time hobby. As a scholar he knew the difficulties facing a translator of German lyrics (having to do justice at the same time to poet, composer, and singer), and to those who feel that we already have good English versions of most of the songs given here, he makes the simple answer that previous translators have not set their standards sufficiently high: This book therefore is apparently intended to fill the vacant place at tHe top of the hierarchy of song translation. Two poems which made a severe test of the skill of the translator, Erl-King and The Two Grenadiers, tend, when compared with standard translations, to substantiate the high claims made by the author. Thus | of the many verbal differences in ErlKing, at least five are closer to the German text without losing anything in tonal or poetic quality, although the version of the last lines of The Two Grenadiers seems weaker in dramatic power. The practice adopted here of printing the German words opposite the translations (as an additional help to listeners and to interest students of German literature) seems of doubtful value to the general reader, as it practically doubles the size, and hence increases the price, of the book. But Sir Robert no doubt felt that general readers would not buy him in any case,