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by Louis Charles Alfred de Musset (1810 - 1857)
Translation © by Amanda Cole

Madrid
Language: French (Français) 
Our translations:  ENG
Madrid, princesse des Espagnes,
Il court par tes mille campagnes
Bien des yeux bleus, bien des yeux noirs.
La blanche ville aux sérénades,
Il passe par tes promenades
Bien des petits pieds tous les soirs.

[Madrid, quand tes taureaux bondissent,
Bien des mains blanches applaudissent,]1
Bien des écharpes sont en [jeux]2;
Par tes belles nuits étoilées, 
Bien des señoras long voilées
Descendent tes escaliers bleus.

Madrid, Madrid, moi, je me raille
De tes dames à fine taille 
Qui chaussent l'escarpin étroit;
Car j'en sais une, par le monde,
Que jamais ni brune ni blonde
N'ont valu le bout de son doigt!

J'en sais une, et certes la duègne
Qui la surveille et qui la peigne
N'ouvre sa fenêtre qu'à moi ;
Certes, qui veut qu'on le redresse,
N'a qu'à l'approcher à la messe,
Fût-ce l'archevêque ou le roi.

Car c'est ma princesse Andalouse!
Mon amoureuse, ma jalouse, 
Ma belle veuve au long réseau!
C'est un vrai démon, c'est un ange!
Elle est jaune comme une orange,
Elle est vive comme l'oiseau! 

Oh ! quand sur ma bouche idolâtre
Elle se pâme, la folâtre,
Il faut voir, dans nos grands combats,
Ce corps si souple et si fragile,
Ainsi qu'une couleuvre agile,
Fuir et glisser entre mes bras !

Or, si d'aventure on s'enquête
Qui m'a valu telle conquête,
C'est l'allure de mon cheval, 
Un compliment sur sa mantille
[Puis]3 des bonbons à la vanille 
Par un beau soir de carnaval.

Available sung texts: (what is this?)

•   P. Viardot-García 

P. Viardot-García sets stanzas 1-3, 5, 7
P. Curet sets stanzas 1-4, 7, 1

View original text (without footnotes)
1 omitted by Viardot-Garcia.
1 Viardot-Garcia: "jeu"
3 Viardot-Garcia: "Et"

Text Authorship:

  • by Louis Charles Alfred de Musset (1810 - 1857), "Madrid", appears in Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie, first published 1830 [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 Paul-Charles-Marie Curet (1848 - 1917), as Paul Puget, "Madrid", 1870-79?, stanzas 1-4,7,1 [ high voice and piano ], from Vingt mélodies, Vol. 1, no. 13, Éd. Girod [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Claude Achille Debussy (1862 - 1918), "Madrid", L. 1/(2) (1879) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Manuel Giró (1848 - 1916), "Madrid" [ high voice and piano ], Paris, Éd. Heugel et Fils 'Au Ménestrel' [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Hachel , "Madrid", published 1878-1879 [ voice and piano ], in Journal du Musique [sung text not yet checked]
  • by André Philippe Alfred Régnier de Massa, comte Gronau (1837 - 1913), "Madrid" [ medium voice and piano ], from Recueil de Mélodies, 1er volume, no. 4, Durand, Schoenewerk [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Hippolyte Monpou (1804 - 1841), "Madrid", 1832?, published <<1838 [ high voice and piano ], Éd. Romagnési (& Lemoine) [sung text checked 1 time]
  • by François Luc Joseph Thomé (1850 - 1909), as Francis Thomé, "Madrid", published 1911 [ reciter, piano, violin ad libitum, tambourine ], Paris, Éditions Henry Lemoine [sung text not yet checked]
  • by Pauline Viardot-García (1821 - 1910), "Madrid", VWV 1136, published 1887, stanzas 1-3,5,7 [ medium voice and piano ], from Six mélodies, no. 5, Éd. "Au Ménestrel", Henri Heugel [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • ENG English [singable] (Amanda Cole) , "Madrid", copyright © 2007, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this page: John Versmoren

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 42
Word count: 240

Madrid
Language: English  after the French (Français) 
Madrid, princess of all the Spains
Many a blue eye, many a black,
runs through your myriad lands.
The white city of serenades,
Many little feet pass 
through your promenades every night.

Madrid, when your bulls are bounding,
Many a white hand applauds.
Many banners are streaming;
On your beautiful starry nights,
Many a long-veiled señora strolls
Down your blue staircases.


Madrid, Madrid, I laugh at
Your well dressed women
Shod in such narrow heels;
Because I know that none in all the world, 
Neither brunette nor blonde,
is worth even the tip of her finger.








She is my Andalusian princess!
My beloved, my jealous one,
My beautiful widow in a long veil!
A true demon, an angel!
She is yellow like an orange,
Lively like a bird!








Now, if you want to know
How I made this conquest,
It was the allure of my horse,
A compliment on her mantilla
And some vanilla bonbons we shared
On a beautiful evening of carnival.

Text Authorship:

  • Singable translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2007 by Amanda Cole, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in French (Français) by Louis Charles Alfred de Musset (1810 - 1857), "Madrid", appears in Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie, first published 1830
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2007-07-07
Line count: 30
Word count: 163

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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

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