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[This article, which focuses on Danish lyric diction, is the second in a two-part series. The previous article provided an overview of Danish music history and the development of the Danish art song tradition, including repertoire suggestions appropriate for all voice types and skill levels.]
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A CURSORY SURVEY OF EARLY EDITIONS of Edvard Grieg's (1843-1907) song "Jeg elsker dig!" (I love you!), a setting of Hans Christian Andersen's (1805-1875) Danish poem "Min tankes tanke" (Thought of my thoughts), reveals that most versions were published in translation. Grieg's original 1864 manuscript, part of the Bergen Public Library collection,1 has only a single verse of Danish text underlay, as does the first published edition from 1865.2 In subsequent decades, numerous editions were published with German, English, and French singable translations, likely an effort to reach the widest possible consumer base. Several editions added a newly composed second verse of text, presumably because the ninety-second miniature was deemed too short.3 Grieg's piece is the norm rather than the exception: the publication, study, and performance of Danish art song in translation was common in the nineteenth century, and this trend continues today.
Performing art song or opera in translation does have advantages. Specifically, use of the native language of the singer facilitates faster learning and memorization, and performance in the vernacular of the audience makes the text immediately accessible without the need for printed or projected translations. However, this is clearly not the case with regard to "Jeg elsker dig!", best known to North American audiences in its German translation "Ich liebe dich!" Rather, a lack of Danish diction resources to the present day has necessitated its performance in translation; this same lack of resources has relegated Danish art song as a whole to the distant periphery of the standard repertoire.
Translation scholar Peter Newmark wrote that "musical beauty [in art song]...emanates not only from the original poetic text, or from the musical setting of the text, but in fact results from the complex word-music relationship, which is created by the composer and then realized in performance."4 As singers we not only strive to convey semantic meaning, but we savor the sounds, the very consonants and vowels, that both the poet...