Traductions anglaises de mélodies françaises à la fin du XIXe siècle ou l’aporie d’une schize

Abstract

Wanting to offer their American customers a wide repertoire of vocal works (for one voice and piano), Oliver Ditson editions undertook extensive adaptation of Lieder and melodies from all sources operation. From the catalog of their solo vocal works (published in Boston in April 1913), we have extracted a dozen French melodies published in separate sheets (all after 1870). They are translated into English with double layering English / French texts and the vocals are from the following composers Bizet, Chausson, Debussy, Delibes, Duparc and Fauré, covering the years of composition from 1855 (for the oldest) to 1890. Translations are made by four different contributors (including two women). From this corpus, it should answer the following questions: is the meaning of the poem respected? Is a rhythmic adequacy (accentual) researched? Does the Declamation retain the same properties? In other words: what status to give this new product with the resulting sound necessarily different from the original? Is it possible to read a new interpretation in the recovery by the translator of a work which necessarily belongs to an allographic regime? We will examine the aims of such an undertaking (the transition from intimate to international form) whose sustainability said enough success it got.