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It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

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by Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (1881 - 1958)
Translation © by Joelle Wallach

¿Esta música que tocan
Language: Spanish (Español) 
Our translations:  ENG
¿Esta música que tocan
en la velada del pueblo,
llega hasta la luna blanca
y triste del cementerio?

Las casas están cerradas,
nadie pasa... allá en el cielo
tiemblan, lejanas y mudas,
las estrellas... ¡Oh! ¡los muertos

que con sus bocas, un día
rojas de sangre, rieron
a esta hora, cuando el vals
se abría hacia los luceros!

Muertos que yo conocí,
que me besé, que me diéron
su mano, que se vestían
de seda roa y...

            Silencio
para siempre... están cerradas
las puertas; allá en el cielo
conversan lejanamente
las estrellas. Y está el pueblo

blanco de luna y azul
de madrugada y de sueño,
al son de esta vieja música
que llega hasta el cementerio.

About the headline (FAQ)

Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada and the U.S., but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.

Text Authorship:

  • by Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (1881 - 1958), appears in Las pastorales, first published 1905 [author's text not yet checked 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 Joelle Wallach (b. 1946), "¿Esta música que tocan" [ vocal quartet or chorus a cappella ], from La musica, los muertos y las estrellas, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • ENG English (Joelle Wallach) , "Can this music, playing", copyright ©, (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: 25
Word count: 117

Can this music, playing
Language: English  after the Spanish (Español) 
 Can this music, playing
 in the village square,
 reach the white moon and
 the sadness of the cemetery?
 
 The houses are closed up
 and nothing goes by... everything in the sky
 trembles; the distant and silent
 stars... Oh! the dead
 
 who, with their mouths, once red as blood,
 laughed at hours like these
 when the waltz opened
 toward the morning stars!
 
 The dead whom I knew,
 whom I kissed, whose hands
 I held, who dressed
 in red silk and...
 
                    Silence
 as before... the doors
 are all shut; in the sky
 the stars converse distantly.
 And this is the town,
 
 white from the moon and blue
 from the dawn and from dreams,
 at the sound of this ancient music
 reaching up to the cemetery.

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Spanish (Español) to English copyright © by Joelle Wallach, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.

    Joelle Wallach. We have no current contact information for the copyright-holder.
    If you wish to commission a new translation, please contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in Spanish (Español) by Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (1881 - 1958), appears in Las pastorales, first published 1905
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 25
Word count: 124

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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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