Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis: Three Swedish Folksong Arrangements
Three Swedish Folksong Arrangements
1. Fjorton år (0:00 - 3:13)
2. Vem kan segla förutan vind? (03:13-5:11)
3. Hälsa dem därhemma (05:11)
arranged by Michael Lewis
Melissa Solomon, soprano
Michael Lewis, pianist (www.michaellewispiano.com)
Video by Izzy Hyman (www.izzyvideo.com)
Fjorton år
(Fourteen years old)
I know of a certainty that I was fourteen years,
a little girl, so cheerful and so happy.
I heard of no suitors,
And I never even thought of anyone.
Later when I was seventeen years,
The sun shone, the cuckoo sang,
and it was spring.
Everything was beautiful,
the green earth, the blue sky,
But it felt as though something was lacking.
Yes, now it is not as it was anymore,
Sometimes I am so sad, sometimes happy,
Sometimes I’m very pale, sometimes blushing,
And I want neither to live or to die.
Vem kan segla förutan vind?
(Who can sail without wind?)
Who can sail without wind?
Who can row without oars?
Who can part from their dearest love
Without tears falling?
I can sail without wind.
I can row without oars.
But I cannot part from my dearest love
without tears falling.
Hälsa dem därhemma
(Greet those at home)
In the vast quiet night
here I stand at the ships helm,
under the heavens’ starry skies,
I have been put at my post.
After a long and hard day,
I hear a distant wing stroke
of a flock of swallows, that goes once more
toward north, toward, light, toward spring.
Greet those at home,
greet mother and father,
greet the green pasture,
greet little brother.
If I had wings
I would fly with you.
Swallow, fly toward home,
greet them from me.
Little swallow, although weak,
day and night, and night and day
you are taken forward toward your goal
by the quick flapping of your wings.
Swallow, think about me also,
gladly would I fly with you;
at home, the meadow is surely green;
oh, swallow, hear my plea.
Greet those at home,
greet mother and father,
greet the green pasture,
greet little brother.
If I had wings
I would fly with you.
Swallow, fly toward home,
greet them from me.
