Music and Texts of GARY BACHLUND
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Goodbye - (2012)
Joachim Ringelnatz
for baritone or bass and piano
Goodbye. I go,
Anybody to irgendwo.
Lebe wohl, du Land, das ich verehre!
On the pier winks no girl, no man.
Oh, the Channel is larger than
Many many Meere.
Only altogether was to me
The only English friend.
And it seems to be
Und muß wohl so sein:
Unser Kontinent hat einen wärmeren Sonnenschein.
Dennoch komme ich aus guter Zeit.
England was light and was polite.
England is a happy land,
Und es braucht uns nicht,
And it doesn't understand,
Was aus foreign Herzen sucht und spricht.
Wenn es wüßte!
Das Schiff rollt. Es entschwindet die Küste.
Ich fühle mich frei.
England, goodbye!3 pages, circa 2' 00"
Joachim Ringelnatz
The original title is "Der Eine" from two poems under the name, "Rückkehr zweier Thüringer aus England," first published in Flugzeuggedanken Gedichte (1929) . While there are often English translations of non-English texts on this site, the tasty mixture of German and English should probably not be captured all in English, or for that matter all in German. We have sometimes made a joke of falling between languages, and during a party in Braunschweig this was amusingly termed Dinglish. Ringelnatz captures this most succinctly. For other settings to Ringelnatz' texts, click here.
The musical materials are simply diatonic gestures flavored with lowered neighbors followed by whole tone gestures followed by basic scalar chromaticism in a waltz of pleasant awkwardness. The whole settles in to an ABA song form. It is hoped that performers will take license aplenty in performing it.
The score for Goodbye is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.
