While I wait for some red tape to clear around one project, I’ve decided to go ahead with another one (and see how disciplined I can be about finishing it quickly). Now is the time for the song cycle I’ve had in the pipeline for a while now.
Among the texts used in my 1996 chorus/orchestra piece Cycle of Friends are translations by Innes Herdan of two Chinese poems from the Tang era. Despite their being translations, they are probably the most satisfying poems I’ve ever worked with. So, I’ve decided to return to her book 300 T’ang Poems to see what grabs me for a new song cycle.
Now, setting poetry in translation raises some interesting questions to begin with. How familiar do you have to be with the original language? How much do you need to know about the given language’s literary tradition? Is it necessary to “get” each and every allusion in the poem? Etcetera.
Each composer will have his or her own set of answers for those questions, but should not begin composing without asking them. I think it is helpful to find out what one can about the traditions and conventions that the poem might be based on. However, in the end, I’m setting a poem in English, and it’s the English rhythm and the choice of English words that matters. If it’s a faithful translation, then the overall effect desired by the original poet will still inform the composition.
I enjoy Mrs. Herdan’s translations, because she is a wonderful poet in her own right, and adds that gift to her understanding of the original Chinese. Although I will find out what I can about the significance of various images in the poems, which will of course inform the resulting music, I’m also likely to respond to them as original poetry, and interpret them in my own way.
The issue of translating Chinese poetry is particularly delicate. The written language consists of characters representing whole words or ideas, as opposed to letters representing phonemes or syllables. Also, it is a very terse, elliptical language with no articles, genders, cases, tenses or other fussy grammatical concerns, which leaves the translator a lot of latitude to be creative.
Example
Here’s a literal translation of four five-character lines from a poem by Du Fu:
Fragrant mist cloud dressed hair wet
Clear brightness jade arm cold
What time lean on empty curtain
Pair shine tears trace dry
Here’s how Innes Herdan translated those lines:
In the sweet mists her cloud-like hair is damp;
In the clear shining her jade-white arms are cold.
When shall we two lean beside the filmy curtain
With moonlight on us both and the tear-stains dry?
Many of these Tang-era poems take rigid forms involving either five characters or seven characters per line. I imagine they’re quite musical to listen to in the original language. (In fact, the Chinese for “recite”, as in poetry, is literally “chant”.) It would be a tall order to even approximate that in translation, and I doubt anyone has done it successfully. Whether the translation will also “sing” just depends on the translator.
Innes Herdan keeps her lines short with “grammar words” at a minimum. The stresses in the English line correspond to the characters in the Chinese line. For example, the character “house” in the Chinese might become “in my house” in English, with emphasis on the word “house”. But the real magic is in the actual choice of words, and the occasional liberties that are taken. My favorite example in the lines quoted above is Mrs. Herdan’s use of the word “filmy”, of which there is no apparent sign in the original Chinese.
As for my piece, I’ve zeroed in on several poems by Du Fu (712�770), which I’ve organized in rather an interesting way. More about that will be posted here in the future.
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