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Mountains, Lake Zurich Copyright Tomoko Yamamoto |
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Und frische Nahrung, neues Blut
saug ich aus freier Welt: Wie ist Natur so hold und gut, die mich am Busen hält! Die Welle wieget unsern Kahn im Rudertakt hinauf, Und Berge, wolkig himmelan begegnen unserm Lauf Und Berge, wolkig himmelan begegnen unserm Lauf Aug, mein Aug, was sinkst du nieder? Goldne Träume, kommt ihr wieder? Weg, du Traum! So gold du bist: Hier auch Lieb und Leben ist. Hier auch Lieb und Leben ist. Auf der Welle blinken tausend schwebende Sterne, Weiche Nebel trinken rings die türmende Ferne Morgenwind umflügelt die beschattete Bucht, Und im See bespiegelt sich die reifende Frucht. Auf der Welle blinken tausend schwebende Sterne, Weiche Nebel trinken rings die türmende Ferne Weiche Nebel trinken rings die türmende Ferne Auf der Welle blinken tausend schwebende Sterne. |
And fresh food, new people
I suck from the free world. How sweet and good is Nature, she holds me to her breast! The waves sways our boat following the beat of the oars, Cloud-covered mountains soaring upward, ahead of us Cloud-covered mountains soaring upward, ahead of us Eye, my eye, what makes it cast down? Golden dreams, will they return? Away, Dream! However gold you are: Here, too, love and life are Here, too, love and life are Over the blinking waves thousand floating stars, Soft mists surround the towering distant mountains Morning breeze moves around the shadowed bay, And in the lake the ripened fruit is reflected. Over the blinking waves thousand floating stars, Soft mist surrounds the towering distant mountains. Soft mist surrounds the towering distant mountains. Over the blinking waves thousand floating stars. |
Program Note: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) wrote this poem in the summer of 1775 when he was on vacation with his friends, the Stolbergs. Goethe was 26 and he refers to his love to Lilli Schönemann, a rich banker`s daughter in Frankfurt in the second stanza of the poem as golden dreams. Goethe and Lilli Schönemann were engaged, but they faced objections from both of their families to their engagement. His trip is considered as an escape from this problem. The lake is Zürichsee or Lake Zurich.(1) Goethe gives a picture of a rowboat moving along on the lake, facing mountains, which are cloud-covered and soaring heavenward. It is morning and the part of the bay is in the shadows, but those waters in the sun are shining like stars. Goethe sees himself reflected in the water. Schubert set the poem in 1817 when he was 20.
The text shown above is the exactly the way Franz Schubert used the text when he set it to music including the repeats, which reflect the repeats in the music. The original text ends at "Sich die reifende Frucht." The original has three stanzas, two of which are 8 lines long and sandwich the short stanza of 4 lines. Note that Schubert emphasized the nature scene of sparkling waves of water and star-like shining of sunlight in water against the mountains at the end of the lake soaring high in a shroud of fog. Lorraine Byrne's book has been helpful to this author with respect to the background to this Goethe poem, but in this author's view, thousands of stars mentioned in the poem are reflections of the morning sun in water and not the stars in heaven since it is the morning view Goethe described in the poem. In order to show this phenomenon of star-like sunshine reflections on the water, the current version of the text translation shows a photo of star-like sunshine reflections taken by this author in 2010 at the Lake Zürich itself although the phenomenon is easily captured anywhere on the water in the early morning hours when the sun is very low and the sunshine hits the water at a low angle.
Note: Please contact the author, Tomoko Yamamoto, if anyone wants to use the poem translation in print. If used on the web, please give the link to this site and let her know. The photos do require formal licensing, that is, you need to pay for the usage of the photos even on the website. The fee varies greatly depending on the type of usage. Tomoko Yamamoto now lives in Vienna, Austria and has her own Einzelunternehmen called Tomoko Yamamoto e.U. and has an Austrian bank account. ---by Tomoko Yamamoto---| Multimedia Performance | Past and Upcoming Dates | Bach Programs | Schubert-related Programs |
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| Schubert-related Programs | Schubert's 1825 Travel with Photos | "To be Sung on the Water":Songs and Slides |
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