song cycle for contralto and seven performers on poems by Ady Endre
Gentle, Evening Prayer
My Lord, grand a silent night,
A tranquil, great night
To your old child,
To your sick. Bad child.
Let not my heart,
My maimed heart be weighted
colours.
By the nightmare of wakefulness,
By its ghastly nightmare.
Let me slumber laughing,
Let me dream laughing
And let me prosper in my slumber,
Let me rejuvenate in my slumber.
When the twilight falls,
The brown twilight falls,
My old prayer my lips
Proliferate, my lips: (Grant
Silent night to my parents. Grant a si-
lent night to everyone. My God,
walking about, awakening
and retiring, I adore you, as
my dear Father. Good Father
take care of me)
Cart Drive into the Night
How shrunken is the Moon today,
How desolate. Mute is the night,
How cheerless I am today,
How shrunken is the Moon today.
Every Whole is broken,
Every flame blazes only in parts,
Every love in pieces,
Every Whole is broken.
An evil cart races with me,
Behind it as if a cry of woe resounds,
Half deep silence and half clamour,
An evil cart races with me.
(Translated by György Gulyás)
My Lord, grand a silent night,
A tranquil, great night
To your old child,
To your sick. Bad child.
Let not my heart,
My maimed heart be weighted
colours.
By the nightmare of wakefulness,
By its ghastly nightmare.
Let me slumber laughing,
Let me dream laughing
And let me prosper in my slumber,
Let me rejuvenate in my slumber.
When the twilight falls,
The brown twilight falls,
My old prayer my lips
Proliferate, my lips: (Grant
Silent night to my parents. Grant a si-
lent night to everyone. My God,
walking about, awakening
and retiring, I adore you, as
my dear Father. Good Father
take care of me)
Cart Drive into the Night
How shrunken is the Moon today,
How desolate. Mute is the night,
How cheerless I am today,
How shrunken is the Moon today.
Every Whole is broken,
Every flame blazes only in parts,
Every love in pieces,
Every Whole is broken.
An evil cart races with me,
Behind it as if a cry of woe resounds,
Half deep silence and half clamour,
An evil cart races with me.
(Translated by György Gulyás)
Murmur From An Ice Pit
It’s been very chilly since yesterday
And there are very many nimble people
And the whole deaf Earth is filled
With ice pits.
Blind is the world and yet
How others play in the dancing
Pale to me are colours, minutes
And visions.
Tastes perished, perfume dissolved,
As if the Sun travelled benumbed
And I murmur from an ice pit
To a thousand nuptials.
If We Meet Dead
Bless me, if you leave me, bless me also,
If I have been bad.
We can’t look into each
Sometime dead.
Our great, dead, popped-open eyes
Boastfully illuminate our night:
Why were we not good to each other?
When we lived?
It’s been very chilly since yesterday
And there are very many nimble people
And the whole deaf Earth is filled
With ice pits.
Blind is the world and yet
How others play in the dancing
Pale to me are colours, minutes
And visions.
Tastes perished, perfume dissolved,
As if the Sun travelled benumbed
And I murmur from an ice pit
To a thousand nuptials.
If We Meet Dead
Bless me, if you leave me, bless me also,
If I have been bad.
We can’t look into each
Sometime dead.
Our great, dead, popped-open eyes
Boastfully illuminate our night:
Why were we not good to each other?
When we lived?