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.

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]
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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.
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• Also set in English, a translation by Stuart Merrill (1863 - 1915) ; composed by Arthur Farwell, Margaret Ruthven Lang.
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• Also set in English, a translation by Logan Pearsall Smith (1865 - 1946) ; composed by Frederick Septimus Kelly.
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• 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.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Alfred Henschke (1890 - 1928) ; composed by Volkmar Andreae, Kurt Brüggemann.
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• Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Hans Heilmann (1859 - 1930) ; composed by Adolf Schreiber.
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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