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Songs

Songs

An den Mond D296

An den Mond

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Füllest wieder Busch und Tal
Still mit Nebelglanz,
Lösest endlich auch einmal
Meine Seele ganz.
Breitest über mein Gefild
Lindernd deinen Blick,
Wie des Freundes Auge, mild
Über mein Geschick.
Ich besass es doch einmal,
Was so köstlich ist!
Dass man doch zu seiner
Qual Nimmer es vergisst.
Rausche, Fluss, das Tal entlang,
Ohne Rast und Ruh,
Rausche, flüstre meinem Sang
Melodien zu,
Wenn du in der Winternacht
Wütend überschwillst,
Oder um die Frühlingspracht
Junger Knospen quillst.
Selig, wer sich vor der Welt
Ohne Hass verschliesst,
Einen Freund am Busen hält
Und mit dem geniesst,
Was, von Menschen nicht gewusst
Oder nicht bedacht,
Durch das Labyrinth der Brust
Wandelt in der Nacht.

To the Moon

English Translation © Richard Wigmore

Once more you silently fill wood and vale
with your hazy gleam
and at last
set my soul quite free.
You cast your soothing gaze
over my fields;
with a friend’s gentle eye
you watch over my fate.
I possessed once
something so precious
that, to my torment,
it can never now be forgotten.
Murmur on, river, through the valley,
without ceasing,
murmur on, whispering melodies
to my song,
When on winter nights
you angrily overflow,
or when you bathe the springtime splendour
of the young buds.
Happy he who, without hatred,
shuts himself off from the world,
holds one friend to his heart,
and with him enjoys
That which, unknown to
and undreamt of by men,
wanders by night
through the labyrinth of the heart.
Translations by Richard Wigmore first published by Gollancz and reprinted in the Hyperion Schubert Song Edition

Composer

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an late Classical and early Romantic composer. He produced a vast oeuvre during his short life, composing more the 600 vocal works (largely Lieder), and well as several symphonies, operas, and a large body of piano music. He was uncommonly gifted from a young age, but appreciation of his music was limited during his lifetime. His work became more popular in the decades after his death, and was praised by 19th century composers, including Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Liszt.

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Poet

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist. A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August in 1782 after first taking up residence there in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe served as a member of the Duke's privy council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace, which in 1998 were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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