Translating: Tatyana and Sergey Nikitin - "To the Music of Vivaldi" | Никитины - Под музыку Вивальди

[justira]

Hello all! I've been meaning to make a project of translating some of my favourite bits of Russian nostalgia -- music and cartoons mostly -- into English, and it seems like I've finally gotten started. I haven't done much translation work before, though, and Russian can be very tricky to translate nicely into English, especially poetry and lyrics,

Comments

[dimwits]

BTW, the lyrics is by the late Alexander Velichansky (Александр Величанский. Под музыку Вивальди. - М.: Эксмо, 2011), not by Nikitin

[klausnick]

If the lyrics are supposed to be sung, they do not correspond to music in many lines.

[justira]

I hadn't tried to sing it, no -- they're intended to subtitle, not to be sung to the same tune. Trying to match the tune had actually not occurred to me at all, though that sounds like a fun and even more challenging project -- it's hard enough to try to convey all the meaning! I'm sorry for not being clearer about that in the post. I really should have been clearer about my intentions! (ETA: have since added a small clarification.) If you have suggestions for making it match the music, I definitely welcome that -- I might be able to expand the scope of my ambitions a bit =)

[justira]

Ack, thank you! I've added an ETA to the post to that effect -- I know the lyrics aren't original to Nikitin, but completely failed to note this. Fixed now, I hope!

[silencegazer]

First of all, you did a great job, I think. It's quite a difficult song to translate and capture all the intricate details.
I still need re-read and think about it some more, but regarding some of the notes:
(05)
I think 'beautiful' works better. 'Glorious' sounds a bit pompous in this case... 'beautiful' is softer.

(08)
You're right, клавесин is 'harpsichord'. It's spelled with a 'e' though.

(10)
Howling... Maybe 'wailing' will work here?

[justira]

Oh, thank you! I really appreciate this!

(08)
Ahhh my Russian spelling! I'm glad I somehow remembered "harpsichord" despite that -- thank you for the correction and confirmation!

(10)
It's a possibility! I'll have to think about whether the connotations for "wailing" fit, but I like this direction -- it's a bit softer than "howling"; that feels appropriate.

Any additional thoughts/comments definitely welcome! =D