Tag Archive: 0German

I’ve blogged before about translating, and then setting, the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. As yesterday was International Translation Day, I thought this week I’d write about another piece of mine, At Cana. This was actually what first brought me to Rilke, when, in 2019, I was looking for a text to set for a […]

This book (a first edition, privately printed on the Royal estate at Windsor) describes itself as ‘The gift of the Queen, to her beloved daughters, Charlotte Aug: Matilda.  Augusta Sophia.  Elizabeth.  Mary.  And Sophia.  And with Her Majesty’s permission dedicated to their Royal Highnesses by the Translator Ellis Cornelia Knight’ (p. [3]).  Cornelia Knight (1757–1837)—novelist, poet, […]

I was recently reminded about the German tradition of the Barbarazweig, and thought I’d share a short Advent piece by Hugo Distler (1908–1942) which I translated some years ago: I first sang it back in December 1995, when I was living in Germany, and found it quite charming. Distler’s work is little known in the […]

I am currently cataloguing some new material in preparation for the Boston Virtual Book Fair next week. Here’s one such item: ‘This elaborate house-blessing [which measures 412 × 325 mm], issued in the 1820s by Johann Ritter and Company of Reading … provides a unique poetic blessing rather than the common prose versions and the shorter […]

I wrote these back in 2009, when they were premiered by the Damon Singers. The text for the third was one of the readings at our wedding (my wife and I both studied modern languages at university).  Having discovered it, I read more of Heine’s work, and found two more poems of his I wanted […]

As many will know, ephemera has been an interest of mine since I set up the business (ten years ago this year!). Recently, I discovered a genre of which I was previously unaware: fancy printed greetings cards from eighteenth-century Germany, using colour and silk. Here is a New Year’s card, the etching printed in blue, […]