German to English song lyrics translation

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Supposedly everything is on the Internet, yet I could not find an English translation of these lyrics:

Wenn es Abend wird, wenn die Sonne sinkt, wenn der Geige Lied von der Puszta klingt, sitz ich oft allein hier bei dem Glaserl Wein, denk, wie schön wär's, bei euch jetzt zu sein. Wenn der alte Mond dort am Himmel thront, mild herunter scheint, sag' ich, 'Prost mein Freund', lieber Mond, unterbrich deinen Lauf, hör' mir zu, denn ich trag' dir was auf:

Grüss mir die süssen, die reizenden Frauen im schönen Wien. Grüss mir die Augen, die lachenden blauen im schönen Wien. Grüss mir die Donau und grüss mir den Walzer im schönen Wien. Grüss mir die heimlichen Gässchen, wo Pärchen des Abends heimwärts zieh'n. Grüss mir mein singendes, klingendes Märchen, mein Wien, mein Wien, mein Wien.

Wenn der Abendwind in den Bäumen singt von der schönen Zeitder Vergangenheit, wenn im Geist vor mir ich die Heimat seh', wird ums Herz mir so wohl und so weh. Wenn du wiederkehrst, wenn du heimwärts fährst ind das liebe Land dort am Donaustrand, wo ein Kranz grüner Berge dir winkt, wo die lieblichsten Lieder man singt:

Grüss mir...

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Type: Question • Score: 3 • Views: 8,211 • Replies: 36

View best answer, chosen by puzzledperson

@puzzledperson,

While the original book and lyrics are in German by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grunwald, the (slightly different) English lyrics are by Nigel Douglas.

And since there are (and have been before) translated English version - you won't find a literal translation to German, it least not so easy.

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@puzzledperson,

A quick and dirty translation:

puzzledperson wrote:

Wenn es Abend wird, wenn die Sonne sinkt, wenn der Geige Lied von der Puszta klingt, sitz ich oft allein hier bei dem Glaserl Wein, denk, wie schön wär's, bei euch jetzt zu sein. Wenn der alte Mond dort am Himmel thront, mild herunter scheint, sag' ich, 'Prost mein Freund', lieber Mond, unterbrich deinen Lauf, hör' mir zu, denn ich trag' dir was auf:

When evening comes, when the sun sets, when the violin plays a song from the Puszta (Hungarian plains), I often sit here alone with a glass of wine and think how beautiful it would be to be by your side. When the old moon is enthroned there in the heavens and shines gently below, I say "cheers, my friend, dear moon, interrupt your journey, listen up, then I give you my regards:"

puzzledperson wrote:

Grüss mir die süssen, die reizenden Frauen im schönen Wien. Grüss mir die Augen, die lachenden blauen im schönen Wien. Grüss mir die Donau und grüss mir den Walzer im schönen Wien. Grüss mir die heimlichen Gässchen, wo Pärchen des Abends heimwärts zieh'n. Grüss mir mein singendes, klingendes Märchen, mein Wien, mein Wien, mein Wien.

Greetings to the sweet, charming ladies in beautiful Vienna. Greetings to the eyes, laughing and blue, in beautiful Vienna. Greetings to the Danube and to the waltzes in beautiful Vienna. Greetings to the secret lanes, where pairs travel homewards in the evening. Greetings to the singing, ringing tales, my Vienna, my Vienna, my Vienna.

puzzledperson wrote:

Wenn der Abendwind in den Bäumen singt von der schönen Zeitder Vergangenheit, wenn im Geist vor mir ich die Heimat seh', wird ums Herz mir so wohl und so weh. Wenn du wiederkehrst, wenn du heimwärts fährst ind das liebe Land dort am Donaustrand, wo ein Kranz grüner Berge dir winkt, wo die lieblichsten Lieder man singt:

When the evening wind sings in the trees of the lovely days of yesteryear, when in my mind's eye I see my homeland, I feel in my heart such gladness and such pain. When you return, when you travel back home to the dear land on the banks of the Danube, where a wreath of green mountains winks at you, where the loveliest songs one sings:

Of course, it's much better in the original

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@joefromchicago,

Excellent!

Host wos guat, i bedamk mi they would say in Vienna, if they would thank someone at all, that is Wink

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

You get the Blue Ribbon, Joe, and its the first one I've given ("selected answer award"). Congratulations, and thank you for what strikes me as a lyrical translation of those lyrics. Excellent, indeed!

Apparently the Staatskapelle Dresden does a live New Years Eve concert; at any rate I came across a CD of the 2012 concert. The concert was mostly devoted to orchestrated songs by Emmerich Kalman, a composer from Vienna who was active writing light opera from about the time of the First World War to the early 1930s. I believe he fled Austria for the United States at the time of the Anschluss. His Viennese waltz music is often mixed with "gypsy" elements and I detect the influence of American pop music from the period as well. It is an idiom I greatly enjoy. I had never heard of the composer but with the exception of the first track (which is a mediocre instrumental piece), this music speaks to me.

The song in question is from his 1924 operetta Grafin Mariza.

The audio quality is particularly good, and the live recording isn't marred by the usual coughing during the quiet parts. Piotr Beczala has a perfect tenor voice for this music, at least on this particular recording, where he demonstrates a technique that might have been heard in Kalman's time and a real "feel for the music". He seems to have perfected his technique especially for this performance and is not merely going through the motions.

Ingeborg Schopf was a last minute stand in and does fine except when the music requires more flexibility than her voice possesses, when her voice breaks. Whether one finds this endearing or annoying is a matter of taste but somehow it seems to work and I don't find myself distracted.

There is also a song by Robert Stoltz, (Ob blond, ob braun, ich liebe alle Frau'n) -- great performance and rather rousing -- as well as the very last waltz of Johann Strauss II. The accompanying DVD is a Lehar gala.

YouTube sampling, to the limited extent that it is available, will give quite a misleading impression unless this particular performance/recording is used AND the digital upload quality is good (I had no luck finding listenable versions online through there were some album length links I didn't check).

4 Replies

@puzzledperson,

Correction: that should be Robert Stolz, not "Stoltz".

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@puzzledperson,

Quite a few of other operettas by Kálmán are on the regular schedule here. (The Csárdás Princess for instance)

You can find more about Emmerich Kálmán at the Operatta Research Center >here<. (The PhD-thesis of its director of it, Kevin Clarke wrote a book about the influence of Kálmán on American popular music (Kevin Clarke: Im Himmel spielt auch schon die Jazzband - Emmerich Kálmán und die transatlantische Operette 1928–32. Bockel Verlag, Hamburg, 2007, ISBN 978-3-932696-70-1)

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Excellent!

Host wos guat, i bedamk mi they would say in Vienna, if they would thank someone at all, that is

I could never understand what those crazy Wieners were saying.

The translation was pretty easy. Apart from initially misreading "Gässchen" as "Glässchen" (I should have known that the librettists would have used "Glaserl" instead), my only problem was with the phrase "ich trag' dir was auf." I'm more familiar with "ein Auftrag geben," which arguably could fit, as the verse is an apostrophe to the moon, telling it to send greetings to Vienna.

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@puzzledperson,

puzzledperson wrote:

You get the Blue Ribbon, Joe, and its the first one I've given ("selected answer award"). Congratulations, and thank you for what strikes me as a lyrical translation of those lyrics. Excellent, indeed!

Many thanks.

puzzledperson wrote:

The concert was mostly devoted to orchestrated songs by Emmerich Kalman, a composer from Vienna who was active writing light opera from about the time of the First World War to the early 1930s. I believe he fled Austria for the United States at the time of the Anschluss. His Viennese waltz music is often mixed with "gypsy" elements and I detect the influence of American pop music from the period as well.

Kalman was Hungarian, and his "Gypsy" music was mostly just done in a Hungarian style. Kalman did experiment with "pop" music in the post-war years, and his Herzogin von Chicago ("The Duchess of Chicago") is an operetta that explores the conflict between European classical music and American jazz.

puzzledperson wrote:

Piotr Beczala has a perfect tenor voice for this music, at least on this particular recording, where he demonstrates a technique that might have been heard in Kalman's time and a real "feel for the music". He seems to have perfected his technique especially for this performance and is not merely going through the motions.

I believe Beczala's American debut was in a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of Gounod's Faust, which I had the pleasure to attend. Beczala is certainly a promising talent.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

"Kevin Clarke wrote a book about the influence of Kálmán on American popular music..."

Very interesting: perhaps some of the "American influence" I hear in the music travelled in the opposite direction than I originally thought? (Probably a little of both).

Thanks for the biographical links and citations.

The CD I referenced has highlights not only from Grafin Mariza but also Die Csardasfurstin, Die Zirkusprinzessin, Kaiserine Josephine, Die Herzogin von Chicago, Das Veilchen vom Montmartre, and Der Teufelsreiter. It's very well programmed (i.e. the flow of the music in its changing moods is quite congenial despite being taken from a variety of operettas). I should imagine it to be an ideal introduction to the composer.

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@puzzledperson,

puzzledperson wrote:

Apparently the Staatskapelle Dresden does a live New Years Eve concert; at any rate I came across a CD of the 2012 concert. The concert was mostly devoted to orchestrated songs by Emmerich Kalman,

Program broschure of that concert (as pdf)

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@joefromchicago,

The selection from Die Herzogin von Chicago I've heard is Ein kleiner Slowfox mit Mary, which even has a banjo in it, and (except for being sung in German) might have been heard in any upscale speakeasy in America at the height of Prohibition.

The CD booklet states that the work was declared "degenerate" by the Nazis, which really seems strange considering what an absolutely harmless old-fashioned song this is. It is a bit odd that the song is sung by a female about a female, but perhaps that is only the case with this performance and not as originally written?

Then again, even Jeeves threatened to quit unless Bertie Wooster gave up banjo playing; so perhaps that's what they objected to.

I do hear American phrasing (not words, but singing style) in some of the vocals to much earlier Kalman songs, and some of those seem to be sprinkled with English words (though perhaps cognates), so it seems to me that incorporation of these elements began much earlier than Herzogin.

You mentioned Gounod's Faust. Surely the Apotheosis from this is among the most glorious choral music ever written.

2 Replies

@puzzledperson,

puzzledperson wrote:

The CD booklet states that the work was declared "degenerate" by the Nazis, which really seems strange considering what an absolutely harmless old-fashioned song this is.

Die Herzogin von Chicago was declared Entartete Musik ("degenerate music") due to the jazz elements n the music. (1937, I think. It had been presented at the exhibition/seminary about degenerated music in May 1938 in Düsseldorf.)

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Ah, good, thank you for that clarification (that the Nazis objected to the jazz elements, and the details as to the timing and circumstances of their declaration of Herzogin's "degeneracy").

I never understood how a political movement whose leadership (Sturmabteilung) was infiltrated by homosexuals could be so sensitive to decadence outside their movement while remaining so blind to internal contradictions.

The Italian foreign minister Count Ciano described Goering (merely effete, not homosexual) in his diary in early February 1942:

"Goering leaves Rome. We had dinner at the Excelsior Hotel, and during dinner Goering talked of little else but the jewels he owned. In fact, he had some beautiful rings on his fingers... On the way to the station he wore a great sable coat, something between what automobile drivers wore in 1906 and what a high-grade prostitute wears to the opera."

A little tangential but very funny...

1 Reply

@puzzledperson,

puzzledperson wrote:

A little tangential but very funny...

Tangential as well, but in my opinion not funny at all: the 'Sturmabteilung' was no "leadership" of a "political movement" but the paramilitary wing of a political party, the NSDAP.

(There's no historical evidence that the SA had been "infiltrated by homosexuals". Quite the opposite: gay men were one of the first groups targeted by the Nazis as well as one of the first, who were sent to the concentration camps. For various sources see this biography)

1 Reply

@puzzledperson,

puzzledperson wrote:

The CD booklet states that the work was declared "degenerate" by the Nazis, which really seems strange considering what an absolutely harmless old-fashioned song this is. It is a bit odd that the song is sung by a female about a female, but perhaps that is only the case with this performance and not as originally written?

The song is sung by a woman in the operetta. It's something of an invitation to dance (more like a challenge, actually), so it makes sense in context for a woman to sing it.

The Nazi regime considered Die Herzogin von Chicago degenerate ("entartete") for a number of reasons. The composer and librettists were all considered Jewish, there's a secondary character who is Jewish and who not only is treated sympathetically but who also has a romance with a non-Jewish character, and then there's the jazz-infused score, which the Nazis denounced as Negermusik.

After the Anschluss in 1938, Kalman either was offered or attempted to attain the status of "honorary Aryan." The details on this episode are unclear - he either refused the offer or wasn't eligible because he wasn't a citizen of the Reich. Anton Lehar, whose wife was considered Jewish by the Nazis, chose a sort of inner exile rather than flee, which is what Kalman and his librettists did.

puzzledperson wrote:

I do hear American phrasing (not words, but singing style) in some of the vocals to much earlier Kalman songs, and some of those seem to be sprinkled with English words (though perhaps cognates), so it seems to me that incorporation of these elements began much earlier than Herzogin.

Jazz didn't really become pop music in the US until after the war (the first jazz recordings weren't released until 1917), so it's unlikely that Kalman was influenced by jazz in his pre-war compositions.

2 Replies

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

The Nazi regime considered Die Herzogin von Chicago degenerate ("entartete") for a number of reasons. The composer and librettists were all considered Jewish, there's a secondary character who is Jewish and who not only is treated sympathetically but who also has a romance with a non-Jewish character, and then there's the jazz-infused score, which the Nazis denounced as Negermusik.

According to the Volksoper and other (online) sources, it was because of the "fremde" Element aus der Neuen Welt.

joefromchicago wrote:

After the Anschluss in 1938, Kalman either was offered or attempted to attain the status of "honorary Aryan." The details on this episode are unclear - he either refused the offer or wasn't eligible because he wasn't a citizen of the Reich.

There are indeed some anecdotal mentionings that Kálmán had been offered to become an "Ehrenarier", in 1938, in Paris, either by Goebbels or Hitler himself.

However, the term "Ehrenarier" (honorary Aryan) had only been used colloquially, it isn't mentioned in the law(s) nor has it been used in official papers.

Quote:

Den Begriff „Ehrenarier" gab es offiziell nicht, nur in der Umgangssprache. Er bedeutete wohl, daß ein jüdischer Mischling auf Grund seiner Stellung und Verdienste im Reich wie ein Arier angesehen wurde und keinerlei Anstalten machen mußte, eine Besserstellung oder Gleichstellung durch Hitler zu erreichen.
Gleiches berichtete Wolff von Reichsarbeitsführer Constantin Hierl, Ministerialrat Heinrich Heim, dem Aufzeichner von Hitlers Tischgesprächen, und Dr. Hans Frank, dem Generalgouverneur im besetzten Polen. Es wird fälschlich behauptet, daß Juden, die im Dienst der Gestapo standen, um etwa untergetauchte Juden aufzuspüren, als Belohnung den Status eines „Ehrenariers" bekamen. Das war aber keine „Befreiung" von den Bestimmungen der Nürnberger Gesetze, sondern nicht mehr als ein temporärer Schutz, solange die Gestapo ihre Dienste benötigte.

Source: John M. Steiner, Jobst Freiherr von Cornberg, Willkür in der Willkür. Befreiungen von den antisemitischen Nürnberger Gesetzen, in Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 46th year (2), 1998

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@joefromchicago,

"Jazz didn't really become pop music in the US until after the war (the recordings weren't released until 1917), so it's unlikely that Kalman was influenced by jazz in his pre-war compositions."

I didn't say jazz influenced, I said influenced by American pop music. I didn't say pre-war, I said long before Herzogin.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

"... gay men were one of the first groups targeted by the Nazis..."

True, but that only demonstrates the cynical hypocrisy of the Nazis.

"There's no historical evidence that the SA had been infiltrated by homosexuals..."

There's plenty. See for example Chapter 7 of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer.

Karl Ernst, leader of the Berlin S.A. (ex-bouncer at a cafe frequented by homosexuals); S.A. Obergruppenfuehrer Edmund Heines, a "notorious homosexual" who was actually found in bed with a young man when Hitler and his raiding party stormed the Hanslbauer Hotel where Roehm and his S.A. lieutenants were sleeping.

The tales of "the corruption and debauchery of the homosexual clique surrounding the S.A. chief" were widely circulated. Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, Army Commander in Chief, stated in recorded testimony given after the war, that "rearmament was too serious and difficult a business to permit the participation of peculators, drunkards and homosexuals".

There is also evidence that Hitler knew about and was fairly indifferent to homosexuality among the S.A. leadership until it suited his purposes to suppress the organization.

"...the 'Sturmabteilung' was no "leadership" of a "political movement" but the paramilitary wing of a political party, the NSDAP."

The S.A. was also the political vanguard of the party. "It was Roehm, chief of the S.A., who coined the phrase "the second revolution" and insisted that it be carried through. He was joined by Goebbels..." And of course, the S.A. formed the core of Hitler's mass political movement. Roehm was named the deputy leader of the party, along with Rudolf Hess, on December 1, 1933.

" Tangential as well, but in my opinion not funny at all..."

I found Ciano's characterization of Goering most amusing. But then, I am not an admirer of Goering or the Third Reich.

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@puzzledperson,

I used a cellphone to post that last comment and because of an editing error (accidental deletion) need to correct a sentence:

Old: " Roehm was named the deputy leader of the party, along with Rudolf Hess, on December 1, 1933"

Corrected: Roehm was named a member of the cabinet along with the deputy leader of the party, Rudolf Hess, on December 1, 1933.

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