SINGING IN ENGLISH.
Sir,-While I agree on the whole with "Lustig" of Timaru, who so vigorously upholds singing in English, let me say something in defence of singers *who use the original words. A large proportion of our finest vocal compositions are translations, and originally they were poems set to music, the composer heeding the phrasing and meaning of the words in his setting.
These songs lose much in translation, _ and often a translation imposes’ difficulties on a singer, such as sustaining a high fortissimo note on an _indefinite vowel. Translations are in use when the climax of a dramatic sequence, in the music, has to be rendered through a silly little world like "of." It is not easy for a translator to make a convincing story and retain the strength of the phraseology of the original. Recently I made a close translation of Rossini’s "La Danza" to sing to an audience of children, and found that the lilting "Mamma Mia" was ludicrously reduced to "Oh Mother-ER"!
PHRASAH
’ (Wellington).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 16
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169SINGING IN ENGLISH. New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 16
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