Lyrics - Naxos

WACHNER, J.: Choral Music, Vol. 1 8.559607
http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.559607
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you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture compels me with
the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
"there is a," "as is the sea marvelous," and "somewhere i have
never travelled,gladly beyond" from COMPLETE POEMS: 1904-
1962, by E. E. Cummings, Edited by George J. Firmage, are used
with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Copyright
1923, 1931, 1951, 1959, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E.
Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1976, 1979 by George James
Firmage.
Rilke Songs
Texts: Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
No. 1 Die Gazelle
Gazella Dorcas
Verzauberte: wie kann der Einklang zweier enwählter
Worte je den Reim erreichen,
der in dir kommt and geht, wie auf ein Zeichen.
Aus deiner Stirne steigen Laub and Leier,
und alles Deine geht schon im Vergleich
durch Liebeslieder, deren Worte, weich
wie Rosenblätter, dem, der nicht mehr liest,
sich auf die Augen legen, die er schließt:
um dich zu sehen: hingetragen, als
wäre mit Sprüngen jeder Lauf geladen
and schösse nur nicht ab, solang der Hals
das Haupt ins Horchen hält: wie wenn beim Baden
im Wald die Badende sich unterbricht:
den Waldsee im gewendeten Gesicht.
No. 2 Der Panther
Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
and hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.
Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf–. Darn geht ein Bild hinein,
The Gazelle
Dorcas Gazelle
Enchanted soul! How can the harmony of two chosen words
Ever equal the perfect rhyme,
Which comes and goes in you, like a given sign?
From your brow, ivy-like the lyre spirals,
And all your essence already in comparison moves
Through love-songs, whose words are smooth
Like rose petals placed upon the lids of the man
Who no longer reads, keeps his eyes shut, so that he can
See you, carried yonder
As though each step were charged with rebounding thunder,
But would not be fired while the neck
Still holds the head in listening attention, just like the nude,
Bathing in a forest lake, will interrupt and glance,
The lake’s reflection on her averted countenance.
The Panther
In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris
After endless paces back and forth, along the iron bars,
Before his tired eyes, every image turns to mist.
He feels that in his world, there only are a thousand bars,
And beyond those thousand bars, no world exists.
Translation © Copyright 2003 by
Karin Grundler-Whitacre.
Used by permission.
Smooth, puissant, and confident steps compose his elegant pace,
Which neverendlingly circles within the most limited lap,
Moves within a confining center, like a powerful dance of grace,
In which a tired, yet mighty will cannot take even one step.
Only at times, the pupil’s veil
Is raised without a sound—an image then can enter.
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