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Sred shumnovo bala ('Amid the din of the ball') (1878) Op. 38 no.3

Part of a series or song cycle:

6 Romances (Op. 38)

Sred shumnovo bala ('Amid the din of the ball')

Leo Tolstoy

Sred shumnovo bala, sluchaino,
V trevoge mirskoi suety,
Tebya ya uvidel, no taina
Tvoi pokryvala cherty.
Lish ochi pechalno glyadeli,
A golos tak divno zvuchal,
Kak zvon otdalyonnoi svireli,
Kak morya igrayushchyi val.
Mne stan tvoi ponravilsa tonkyi
I ves tvoi zadumchivyi vid,
A smekh tvoy, i grustnyi, i zvonkyi,
S tekh por v moyom serdtse zvuchit.
V chasy odinokie nochi
Lyublyu ya, ustalyi, prilech;
Ya vizhu pechalnye ochi,
Ya slyshu vesyoluyu rech,
I grustno ya, grustno tak zasypayu,
I v gryozakh nevedomykh splyu …
Lyublyu li tebya, ya ne znayu,
No kazhetsa mne, chto lyublyu!

Amidst the din of the ball

English Translation © Philip Ross Bullock

Amidst the din of the ball, by chance,
In the commotion of worldly vanity,
I glimpsed you, but mystery
Covered your features.
Only your eyes looked sad,
But the divine sound of your voice
Was like the of far-off pipes,
Or the dancing waves of the sea.
I fell for your delicate form,
And all of your pensiveness,
And your laughter, both sad and sonorous,
Still rings in my heart.
In the lonely hours of night,
I love to lie down, tired;
I see your sad eyes,
I hear your joyful words.
And wistful, so wistfully falling asleep,
I drift into mysterious dreams…
I don’t know whether I love you,
But I think I probably do!

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Composer

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. His works are still among the most popular music in the classical repetoire, and he is widely acknowledged as the first Russian composer to make a lasting international impression.

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Poet

Leo Tolstoy

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He received multiple nominations for Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906, and nominations for Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902 and 1910, and his miss of the prize is a major Nobel prize controversy.

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