Архив рубрики: Samuil Marshak

Pesnyary, Robert Burns, Samuil Marshak

Robert Burns — The Jolly Beggars. A Cantata (In Russian)

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Several years ago I was presented with a CD containins all albums by the VIA Pesnyary. I shared their song Oh early on Ivan’s Day in my early blogging days. However, the tracks from Birch-tree Juice contained a true gem: the entire Jolly Beggars Cantata by Robert Burns translated into Russian by Samuil Marshak and set to music by Igor Polivoda. To mark Burns’s birthday this year, I uploaded the Cantata in full to Soundcloud. Don’t lose time to listen to this brilliant work!

RobertBurns.org tells us that

‘The Jolly Beggars’ presents difficulties in staging, because each of the characters has only one song to sing. Arrangements popular in their day were those of Sir Henry Bishop (1786 — 1855) and John More Smieton (1857 — 1904), but by far the most successful realisation is probably the stylised arrangement for four voices and chamber instrumental ensemble which Cedric Thorpe Davie made for the Scottish Festival at Braemar in 1953, and which was subsequently staged at the Edinburgh International Festival, televised, broadcast, recorded and performed in local halls throughout Scotland by the Saltire Singers and others.

I don’t know if the Russian version has ever been staged but the score ranges from a rock’n’roll tune to a ballade through some recitativos. A penultimate song is not, in fact, from the Cantata but a shortened version of Is There For Honest Poverty poem. The Cantata was originally called «Love and Liberty«, and although the mentioned website lists any number of possible inspiration sources, the lower social strata had increasingly begun to surface in the 18th c., with The Beggar’s Opera appearing in English as early as in 1728. I mentioned it before; it later became the basis for Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. It seems quite likely that John Gay who wrote The Beggar’s Opera helped to popularise the use of the word «beggar» in the title: Merry Beggars and The Happy Beggars were also the source of inspiration for Robert Burns and no doubt influenced the choice of the name.

The tracks in the playlist follow one after another in the same order as in the English Cantata, the final track preceded by the extract from Is There For Honest Poverty.

Robert Burns — The Jolly Beggars autograph, page 1
(Courtesy of Burns Scotland)

 

History, Literature, On Russia, PhotoFiles, Poetry, Samuil Marshak, Translations

Samuil Marshak — In the Van (My Children’s Book and Notes on Translation)

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The scans in this post are of the book that was published by Progress Publishing House in 1982. That’s how long — as long as I live — I’ve been learning the English language.
In hindsight, this was also my first acquaintance with the art of translation because in the book is the poem by the famous Russian poet and translator, Samuil Marshak. I have previously shared with you his superb rendering of Love and Poverty by Robert Burns. Now, this is another way round: Marshak’s poem, In the Van, translated into English by Margaret Wettlin.
Before you jump to read the original Russian text and to look at the book which leaves I had been turning with my tiny fingers at the age of 2, a few observations on translation, or rather, on what was added and what was lost. In the poem, Marshak didn’t name a street; the street name appears in the translation. And later in the poem, we are told that the lady went to Zhitomir, which is a city in the north-west of Ukraine. However, translation tells us that the city was «in southern Ukraine». And while the street name hardly matters, the part of Ukraine does. The poem was written in 1926 and evidently tells the story of an affluent woman fleeing Soviet Russia. Marshak most likely was reflecting on an incident that took place in the not too distant past. While the so-called White Emigration was leaving for Sourthen Europe and America via the Crimea (which is, indeed, in the south of Ukraine), a large part was also fleeing to Northern Europe, via northern parts of Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic countries. Thus the fate of the lady may differ, depending on which way she exited the Ukraine.
To use the final two lines of the poem as the pun, in the course of her journey from the Russian language to English, the lady in the van could have changed her opinion, and go to the Crimea instead of Zhitomir.
Самуил Маршак — Багаж (1926)

Дама сдавала в багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку
И маленькую собачонку.

Выдали даме на станции
Четыре зелёных квитанции
О том, что получен багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка
И маленькая собачонка.

Вещи везут на перрон.
Кидают в открытый вагон.
Готово. Уложен багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка
И маленькая собачонка.

Но только раздался звонок,
Удрал из вагона щенок.

Хватились на станции Дно:
Потеряно место одно.
В испуге считают багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка…
— Товарищи!
Где собачонка?

Вдруг видят: стоит у колёс
Огромный взъерошенный пёс.
Поймали его — и в багаж,
Туда, где лежал саквояж,
Картина,
Корзина,
Картонка,
Где прежде была собачонка.

Приехали в город Житомир.
Носильщик пятнадцатый номер
Везёт на тележке багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку,
А сзади ведут собачонку.

Собака-то как зарычит.
А барыня как закричит:
— Разбойники! Воры! Уроды!
Собака — не той породы!

Швырнула она чемодан,
Ногой отпихнула диван,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку…
— Отдайте мою собачонку!

— Позвольте, мамаша. На станции,
Согласно багажной квитанции,
От вас получили багаж:
Диван,
Чемодан,
Саквояж,
Картину,
Корзину,
Картонку
И маленькую собачонку.

Однако
За время пути
Собака
Могла подрасти!

To your convenience, here is a full scanned version of the English text (on Scribd) AND ALSO something completely different — a rather irreverent and somewhat provocative 1996 illustrated Russian edition of the same poem. Enjoy and share your thoughts!

http://www.scribd.com/embeds/112006657/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-ers0x51nvdfhbimrcwm

http://www.scribd.com/embeds/136316555/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-2ng9oq4qgyasfa5hrs30

Cinema, Music, Poetry, Robert Burns, Samuil Marshak, Theatre, Translations, Viktor Titov, YouTube

A Brazilian Popular Song, Love and Poverty, To Robert Burns’s Lyrics

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I have noticed over the years that, unless someone who lives abroad is a serious Cinema student, Russian (and Soviet, especially) films are largely unknown in the West. Films by Andrei Tarkovsky will be known because a few of them were made when Tarkovsky had emigrated, and can be compared to films by the nouvelle vague directors. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson couldn’t remain unnoticed, given the worldwide popularity of the sleuth’s character. Hamlet by Kosintzev is once again a part of the global fascination with Shakerspeare’s tragedy. The Cranes Are Flying by Kalatozov had won a Palm d’Or at Cannes; War and Peace by Sergei Bondarchuk, Moscow Doesn’t Trust Tears by Vladimir Menshov, and Burnt by the Sun by Nikita Mikhalkov, had all won Oscars as Best Foreign Films. Yet a massive number of films made in Russia and Soviet Union remain behind the language barrier.

What may not be known, or fully realised, is that, in spite of the «Iron Curtain» hanging, Soviet directors managed to adapt foreign authors to screen. This was one of the reasons why, during the release of 2006 version of Quiet Flows the Don, I couldn’t understand or agree with the negative attitude to «foreigners» who were playing «Russians». Russians had played so many foreigners, with good taste, too, that it only made sense to give «aliens» a chance to prove themselves. If not adapting the actual foreign classics, Russian directors were nevertheless attracted to foreign culture, and I’d hope to show, how they managed.

One more undeniably unique trait of Russian cinema of all times is a song. It could be a single, or a series of songs, but on many occasions it was an important component in the film. Clearly understanding the metaphoric, figurative nature of a song, directors and editors used the existing, or commissioned new, songs to highlight a certain idea.

The extract below is from one of the best-loved Soviet comedies, made by Viktor Titov, Hello, I’m Your Aunt! It is a version of a hit farce Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas. The play was a hit in England where it was originally performed, and was subsequently staged and adapted internationally. What you will see in the video, is a complete improvisation, led by Alexander Kalyagin who these days runs his own theatre company, Et Cetera. The music by Vladislav Kazenin was written to the poem by Robert Burns (translated by Samuel Marshak); the original text by Burns is after the video. One thing Samuel Marshak, one of the best Russian translators, was often able to do was to preserve the original metric style of the poem. Therefore, if you want you may try and sing Burns’s original poem to Kazenin’s music.

O poortith cauld, and restless love,
Ye wrack my peace between ye;
Yet poortith a’ I could forgive,
An ’twere na for my Jeanie.
O why should Fate sic pleasure have,
Life’s dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
Depend on Fortune’s shining?

The warld’s wealth, when I think on,
It’s pride and a’ the lave o’t;
O fie on silly coward man,
That he should be the slave o’t!
Her e’en, sae bonie blue, betray
How she repays my passion;
But prudence is her o’erword aye,
She talks o’ rank and fashion.

O wha can prudence think upon,
And sic a lassie by him?
O wha can prudence think upon,
And sae in love as I am?
How blest the simple cotter’s fate!
He woos his artless dearie;
The silly bogles, wealth and state,
Can never make him eerie,