Memories | That night, it was snowing in the garden of Liang

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by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Souvenirs

Language: French (Français) after the Chinese (中文)

Our translations: ENG

Cette nuit, il neigeait dans le jardin Liang.
J’avais froid, et tu ne t’en doutais pas.
Je regardais les arbres de jade
sous lesquels, autrefois, je t’attendais.

Confirmed with Franz Toussaint, La flûte de jade : poésies chinoises, Paris: H. Piazza, 1922, page 33.

Note: later editions have the following changes to the text:
Line 3 is "Je regardais les grands arbres"
There is a second stanza as follows:

Toute cette neige
qui tombait sur notre passé…

Text Authorship:

by Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955), "Souvenirs", appears in La flûte de jade, Paris, Éd. H. Piazza, first published 1920 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

a text in Chinese (中文) by Tsao Chang Ling (1719 - 1763) [text unavailable]
- 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 Raymond Moulaert (1875 - 1962), "Souvenirs", 1917, published 1922 [ voice and piano ], from Quatre poèmes chinois extraits de La Flûte de Jade de Franz Toussaint, no. 3, Paris, Éd. Maurice Sénart
Score: IMSLP [external link] [sung text checked 1 time]

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2020-10-14
Line count: 4
Word count: 27

Memories

Language: English after the French (Français)

That night, it was snowing in the garden of Liang.
I was cold, and you didn't suspect it.
I looked at the trees of jade
under which I once used to wait for you.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2026 by Grant Hicks, (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 Franz Toussaint (1879 - 1955), "Souvenirs", appears in La flûte de jade, Paris, Éd. H. Piazza, first published 1920
- Go to the text page.

Based on:

a text in Chinese (中文) by Tsao Chang Ling (1719 - 1763) [text unavailable]
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-04-24
Line count: 4
Word count: 34