Midweek music spot: Franz Josef Haydn, extracts from "The Creation"

Some of the music from Haydn's Creation, with the correct words.

Nine times out of ten when the chorus and trio "The Heavens are telling the glory of God" is performed,  the second line is sung with completely nonsensical words. It was originally written in English and subsequently translated into German for Haydn by an amateur translator the quality of whose work could politely be described as controversial, 

I do not claim to be qualified to comment on the quality of the German version, but I don't need any vast expertise in German to be to understand that during the process of translation from English to German and back again, to give the version most often performed, the first line of Psalm 19 (In the King James bible, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.") has been mangled and  the subject and object of the second half of the verse swapped round. 

The YouTube clip below is one of the comparatively rare performances with the correct words. The lyrics of this extract are:

Solo Bass 
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 
And the earth was without form, and void. 
And darkness was upon the face of the deep. 

Choir 
And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
And God said: Let there be light. 
And there was light. 

Solo Tenor 
And God saw the light, that it was good: 
and God divided the light from the darkness. 

Chorus 
The heavens are telling the glory of God: 
 the firmament displays His wondrous handiwork. 

Trio: Soprano, Tenor and Bass 
For day unto day doth show forth His praise: 
and night unto night the same doth proclaim. 
In all the lands resounds the word: 
never unperceived, ever understood.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more