LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,114)
  • Text Authors (19,495)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936)
Translation by Félix Gattegno (flourished c1941-1946)

El niño busca su voz
Language: Spanish (Español) 
Our translations:  ENG FRE
El niño busca su voz.
(La tenía el rey de los grillos.)
En una gota de agua
buscaba su voz el niño.

No la quiero para hablar;
me haré con ella un anillo
que llevará mi silencio
en su dedo pequeñito.

En una gota de agua
buscaba su voz el niño.

(La voz cautiva, a lo lejos,
se ponía un traje de grillo.)

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   G. Crumb 

G. Crumb sets stanzas 1-2

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936), "El niño mudo", appears in Canciones, in Trasmundo [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by George Crumb (1929 - 2022), no title, 1970, stanzas 1-2 [ soprano, boy soprano, oboe, mandolin, harp, electric piano, and percussion ], from Ancient Voices of Children, no. 1, New York : Peters [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by Agustín Fernández (b. 1958), "El niño mudo", 1976 [ low voice and piano ], from El anillo, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Frederic Mompou i Dencausse (1893 - 1987), "El niño mudo " [ voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in English, a translation by William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927) , copyright © ; composed by Alvin Brehm.
    • Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]
  • Also set in French (Français), a translation by Félix Gattegno (flourished c1941-1946) ; composed by Francis Poulenc.
    • Go to the text.

Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • ENG English (Laura Prichard) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "L'enfant muet", copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 63

L'enfant muet
Language: French (Français)  after the Spanish (Español) 
L'enfant cherche sa voix. 
C'est le roi des grillons qui l'a,
Dans une goutte d'eau, 
l'enfant cherchait sa voix.

Je ne la veux pas pour parler, 
j'en ferais une bague
Que mon silence portera 
à son plus petit doigt 

Dans une goutte d'eau l'enfant 
cherchait sa voix

(La voix captive, loin de là, 
met un costume de grillon).

Text Authorship:

  • by Félix Gattegno (flourished c1941-1946) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Based on:

  • a text in Spanish (Español) by Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936), "El niño mudo", appears in Canciones, in Trasmundo
    • Go to the text page.

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963), "L'enfant muet", FP 136 no. 1 (1947), published 1947 [ medium voice and piano ], from Trois Chansons de F. Garcia-Lorca, no. 1, Éd. Heugel [sung text checked 1 time]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in English, a translation by William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927) , copyright © ; composed by Alvin Brehm.
      • Go to the text. [Note: the text is not in the database yet.]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2003-11-08
Line count: 12
Word count: 58

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris