Cover
Click image to order
Never miss a post
Your email address:*
Name: 
Please enter all required fields
Correct invalid entries

Categories

Lera Auerbach, The Trouble Clef

Violoncello [Dovid Hofshteyn - Trans. by Lera Auerbach]

image from vesselsoflight.leraauerbach.com

Dovid Hofshteyn (1889-1952) left Russia during the years of war and revolution and was a pioneer of modernist literature in Yiddish after the First World War. He returned to the USSR in the mid-1920s and became involved in Soviet cultural activities in Yiddish. Like other Yiddish writers, Hofshteyn participated in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. In 1948, as part of the process of eliminating Yiddish culture in the USSR, he was arrested and tried alongside other Jewish authors. On August 12, 1952, he was executed by the Soviet government in what has come to be known as the Night of the Murdered Poets.

 
Violoncello
 
Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif?
Un s’tsitern di vent,
di zayln fun mayn zayn,
un hekher, hekher shtaygt 
di shtil fun ere dayner,
un nider vert bagrobt
mit shtoyb fun dayne fis.
 
Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif?
Vos bodstu zikh in shtoyb,
vos vashstu zikh in ash,
vi foyglen in a hits,
vos hobm furkht far vaser 
un kiln zikh mit erd un frishn zikh in mist?..
 
Vos boygstu zikh, mayn zel?
Vos brumstu brustik tif,
vi zod fun frishn blut
af shtumen roytn shteyn,
vi zod, vos vert nit shtil
fun umshuld zoyber-reynem,
biz gloybik heyses blut
mit tsiter im bagist.
 
Nu, boyg zhe zikh, mayn zel,
nu, brum zhe brustik tif,
un ver fun ashn klor,
fun blutn ver shoyn reyn,
un ver fun tsiter mild,
ver loyter shoyn fun veynen,
un zol tsu likht dir zayn
dayn groyser brokh, dayn ris!
 
 
Violoncello

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
rumbling deeply in my chest?
The walls of my core are trembling.
Higher, still higher, soars
your quiet honour.
Then, falling, it buries itself
under the dust of your feet.
 
Why do you vibrate, my soul,
rumbling deeply in my chest?
Why do you bathe in the dust,
and wash yourself in the ashes?
So are birds in the smouldering heat,
thirsty for water – can cool
themselves in the earth,
and get refreshed in the sand.

Why do you vibrate, my soul,
from the depth of my chest,
boiling like fresh blood
spilt on the mute stones?
The boiling will not subside
from its pure innocence,
nor from its hot devotion –
it is trembling, spilling over.

Oh, bend to me, my soul,
sing heartfully within my depth,
cleansed by ashes
purified by blood,
your strings tremble gentler,
enlightened by the sobbing …
Let the grief and sorrow
illuminate the way!
 
— “Violoncello” by Dovid Hofshteyn (Translation by Lera Auerbach)

August 20, 2021

August 13, 2021

August 06, 2021

July 30, 2021

July 23, 2021

July 16, 2021

July 09, 2021

July 02, 2021

June 18, 2021

June 04, 2021

May 28, 2021

May 20, 2021

May 14, 2021

May 07, 2021

April 30, 2021

April 23, 2021

April 16, 2021

April 09, 2021

April 02, 2021

March 26, 2021

Cover
click image to order your copy
That Ship Has Sailed
Click image to order
BAP ad
Cover
"Lively and affectionate" Publishers Weekly

Radio

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark


from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman

StatCounter

  • StatCounter