"A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC"
Sir,-The programme printed in The Listener for 2YA’s classical hour at 2.0 p.m. on January 15 ancluded "A Little Night Music," which presumably is intended as a translation of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, This mistranslation has so frequently appeared in The Listener and been heard from announcers, that it does not seem out of place to observe that the compound noun "Nachtmusik"
means "serenade," "Kleine" being, of course, an adjective meaning "little" or "small." However, since it is not possible to speak in English of "a music," it follows that "little" in the phrase "A Little Night Music" must be regarded as a noun of quantity, as in "Will you have a little meat?" Let us hope that the NZBS will not continue to lend its authority to this ludicrous mistranslation in printed programmes, and will require its announcers to call the work simply "A Little Serenade."
MOZART LOVER
(Wellington)
(The translation our correspondent dislikes is widely used, is not indefensible, and seriously misleads nobody. And why is it "not possible to speak in English of ‘a music’ ’’? Wordsworth said it ("A music sweeter than their own’’); Ruskin said it (‘All one’s life is a music’); Archibald MacLeish said it (‘I hear far off, at some _ forgotten door, a music’); and there have been many others, back to Shakespeare.-Ed.) ;
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 760, 12 February 1954, Page 5
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222"A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC" New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 760, 12 February 1954, Page 5
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