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by Mikhail Yur'yevich Lermontov (1814 - 1841)
Translation © by Dmitri Smirnov
Тучки небесные, вечные странники!
Language: Russian (Русский)
Тучки небесные, вечные странники! Степью лазурною, цепью жемчужною Мчитесь вы, будто как я же, изгнанники С милого севера в сторону южную.1 Кто же вас гонит: судьбы ли решение? Зависть ли тайная? злоба ль открытая? Или на вас тяготит преступление? Или друзей клевета ядовитая?2 Нет, вам наскучили нивы бесплодные... Чужды вам страсти и чужды страдания; Вечно холодные, вечно свободные, Нет у вас родины, нет вам изгнания.
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)Note: an earlier spelling of "небесные" is "небесныя", still preserved in some of the titles below.
1 Sviridov adds: "/ Мчитесь вы, тучки небесные." (from stanza 1)2 Sviridov adds
Тучки небесные, мчитесь вы, Вечные, вечные странники! Кто же вас гонит: судьбы ли решение? Зависть ли тайная? Тучки небесные, вечные странники!
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Note on TransliterationsText Authorship:
- by Mikhail Yur'yevich Lermontov (1814 - 1841), "Тучи", first published 1840 [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 Irina Vladimirovna Arseyeva (1941 - 1999), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Boris Vladimirovich Asafiev (1884 - 1949), "Тучи", from Liricheskije Stranicy (na temu "Odinochestvo Lermontova"), no. 4 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Pavel Ivanovich Blaramberg (1841 - 1907), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Fyodor Fyodorovich Bogdanov (b. 1904), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Nikolai Nikolayevich Cherepnin (1873 - 1945), "Тучки небесныя", op. 2 (2 хора для смешанных голосов a cappella (2 khora dlja smeshannykh golosov a cappella)) no. 2 [ mixed chorus a cappella ], Leipzig, Belaieff [sung text not yet checked]
- by César Antonovich Cui (1835 - 1918), "Тучи", op. 19 (Семь романсов и дуэтов = Sem' romansov i du`etov (Seven romances and duets)) no. 6 (1881), published 1881 [ vocal duet with piano ], St Petersburg, Bessel [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Dargomyzhsky (1813 - 1869), "Тучки небесные" [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Anton Antonovich Derfeldt (1810 - 1869), "Тучки небесные" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Yosif Yosifovich Genishta (1795 - 1853), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Vladimir Sergeyevich Ivannikov (1906 - 1987), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Sergey Fyodorovich Kaidan-Deshkin (1901 - 1972), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Pavel Aleksandrovich Kavelin (1834 - 1909), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Grigory Grigoryevich Lobachev (1888 - 1953), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Gavriil Yakimovich Lomakin (1812 - 1885), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Sergey Mikhailovich Lyapunov (1859 - 1924), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Aleksandr Borisovich Matyukhin (b. 1947), "Тучки небесные" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Olga Vasilyevna Nikolskaya (b. 1916), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Nikolai Platonovich Ogaryov (1813 - 1877), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Aleksandr Alekseyevich Olenin (1865 - 1944), "Тучки небесные", op. 24 (Пять песен для голоса с фортепиано (Pjat' pesen dlja golosa s fortepiano)) no. 2, published 1924 [ voice and piano ], Moscow, Gos. Izdatelstvo Muz. Sektor [sung text not yet checked]
- by Aleksandr Petrov , "Тучки небесные" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Aleksei Alekseyevich Petrov (1859 - 1919), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ivan Alexandrovich Pomazansky (1848 - 1918), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Sergey Alekseyevich Razoryonov (1909 - 1996), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 - 1908), "Тучи небесныя", op. 13 (2 трехголосных женских хора (2 trekhgolosnykh zhenskikh khora)) no. 1 [ three-part women's chorus and harmonium or fortepiano ad libitum ], Leipzig, Belaieff [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (1829 - 1894), "Тучи", op. 36 (Zwölf Lieder aus dem Russischem von F. Bodenstedt) no. 4 (1849-51) [ voice and piano ], Wien, Spina, also set in German (Deutsch) [sung text not yet checked]
- by Fyodor Ivanovich Silin , "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Mikhail Nikolayevich Simansky (1910 - 2002), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov (1948 - 2020), "Тучи", op. 159 no. 2 (2009) [ voice and violoncello ], from Ot sosny do luny, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Vladimir Timofeyevich Sokolov (1830 - 1890), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Konstantin Nikolayevich Startsev , "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Georgiy Vasil'yevich Sviridov (1915 - 1998), "Тучи" [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Aleksandr Yegorovich Varlamov (1801 - 1848), "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Vasily Alekseyevich Vonlyarlyarsky (1814 - 1853), "Тучки небесные" [sung text not yet checked]
- by Nikolay Ivanovich Zabusov , "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
- by F. A. Zaikin , "Тучи" [sung text not yet checked]
Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:
- Also set in French (Français), a translation by Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (1802 - 1870) , "Les nuages", appears in Impressions de voyage, Paris, Éd. Michel Lévy frères, first published 1865 ; composed by Jules Bouval.
- Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Friedrich Martin von Bodenstedt (1819 - 1892) , "Die Wolken", appears in Russische Dichter, first published 1866 ; composed by Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein.
Other available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- CHI Chinese (中文) (Dr Huaixing Wang) , copyright © 2024, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ENG English [singable] (Dmitri Smirnov) , "The clouds", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- ENG English (Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi) , "To the clouds", appears in Russian Lyrics, first published 1916
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: 65
The clouds
Language: English after the Russian (Русский)
Clouds in the sky, you are ceaselessly wandering! As pearly chains in the azure steppes glimmering Exiled as I have been, constantly hurrying From native North into South you are quickening. What drives you there: the command of your destiny? Some secret jealousy? Or open wickedness? Or crimes hang heavy on you or some mutiny? Or your friends' calumny is cruel and poisonous? No, you were bored to death with these fields' fruitlessness With all these passions and alien misery, Ice cold eternally, in steady idleness You have no homeland and suffer no outlawry.
Text Authorship:
- Singable translation from Russian (Русский) to English copyright © 2009 by Dmitri Smirnov, (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 Russian (Русский) by Mikhail Yur'yevich Lermontov (1814 - 1841), "Тучи", first published 1840
This text was added to the website: 2009-11-04
Line count: 12
Word count: 94