J'avais mis toute mon âme dans une chanson Que j'ai chanté aux hommes. Et ils ont ri . . . J'ai pris mon luth. Je suis allé m'asseoir au sommet d'une montagne Et j'ai chanté [pour les dieux]1 la chanson Que les hommes n'avaient pas comprise. Le soleil se couchait au rhythme de ma chanson. Les dieux ont dansé sur les nuages rouges Qui flottaient dans le ciel.
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View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Wertheim
Text Authorship:
- by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Based on:
- a text in Chinese (中文) by Li-Tai-Po (701 - 762) [text unavailable]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Henk Badings (1907 - 1987), "La danse des dieux", 1973 [ mixed chorus ], from Cinq poèmes chinois, no. 5 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by G. Basilewsky , "La danse des dieux", op. 18 no. 3 [ voice and piano ], from Trois poèmes chinois, no. 3, Bruxelles : L' Art belge [sung text not yet checked]
- by Therèse Brenet (b. 1935), "La danse des dieux", copyright © 2008 [ baritone, flute and piano ], from Poème de Jade, no. 5, Editions de la Fabrique Musique [sung text not yet checked]
- by Rosalie Marie Wertheim (1888 - 1949), "La danse des dieux", 1939 [ soprano, flute and harp or piano ], from Trois Chansons pour soprano, flûte et harpe, no. 1, confirmed with a CD booklet [sung text checked 1 time]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in Dutch (Nederlands), a translation by (Stephanie) Hélène Swarth (1859 - 1941) , "De dans der goden", subtitle: "Li-Tai-Po", appears in De Chineesche fluit ; composed by Simon Pluister.
- Also set in English, a translation by Stuart Merrill (1863 - 1915) ; composed by Arthur Farwell, Margaret Ruthven Lang.
- Also set in English, a translation by Logan Pearsall Smith (1865 - 1946) ; composed by Frederick Septimus Kelly.
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Hans Bethge (1876 - 1946) , "Der Tanz der Götter" ; composed by Maria Herz, Lise Maria Mayer, Anatol Provaznik.
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Alfred Henschke (1890 - 1928) ; composed by Volkmar Andreae, Kurt Brüggemann.
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Hans Heilmann (1859 - 1930) ; composed by Adolf Schreiber.
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Malcolm Wren [Guest Editor] , Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]
This text was added to the website: 2017-12-24
Line count: 10
Word count: 69