Bröderna fara väl vilse ibland
"Bröderna fara väl vilse ibland" | |
---|---|
Art song | |
English | Brothers lose their way at times |
Written | 1771 |
Text | poem by Carl Michael Bellman |
Language | Swedish |
Published | 1790 in Fredman's Epistles |
Scoring | voice and cittern |
Bröderna fara väl vilse ibland (Brothers lose their way at times), is a song by the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman, from his 1790 collection, Fredman's Epistles, where it is No. 35. The epistle is subtitled "Angående sin Sköna och hännes obeständighet." (About his beautiful girl, and her unreliability). The first verse ends "My girl has forgotten me, I'll die faithful. Night and day in drunkenness, shall all my sorrow pass away."
The epistle has been called one of Bellman's most radical and innovative. He uses several metrical devices to counteract the simple beat of the melody. The epistle is about drinking, but has been praised by critics such as Lars Warme for having risen far above that song-form. The first couplet plays humorously[1] on a verse from the Bible, singing not of the danger of sin but of picking up the wrong glass in a tavern. Fred Åkerström recorded two different versions of the Epistle, giving the text new life and depth.[2]
Context
Song
Melody and verse form
The tune is a variant of a melody from Pierre Laujon's opera Silvie, Act II, Scene 5.[1][12] The epistle has five verses, each of twelve lines. Its time signature is 4
4, with its tempo marked Grave. The rhyming pattern is ABAA-ABAA-CBCC.[13] The epistle is dated 14 December 1771.[1]
Lyrics
Carl Michael Bellman, 1790[3] | Lars Warme, prose, 1996[14] | Eva Toller, prose, 2004[15] | Paul Britten Austin's verse, 1977[16] |
---|---|---|---|
Bröderna fara väl vilse ibland |
The brethren lose their way at times |
Sometimes the brethren go astray |
Truly the brethren go often astray |
The epistle paints a picture of a man (the watchmaker Fredman) at the end of his wits, disappointed in love, trying to forget his feelings in drink, and recalling how he "gave her gifts and gold". He compares himself to a bird snared in a trap "and I scarcely even have death as a friend". In the last verse he recalls her skin "and her eyes' burning games" he feels his heart "heavy as lead", but at last he curses her: "Damn you for betraying me!", and says enough.[13]
Reception and legacy
The
The literary historian Lars Warme observes that a Bellman epistle "is related to a drinking song only by derivation. As an artistic achievement [the form] stands alone in the history of Swedish poetry." Warme chooses Epistle 35 as an example of a work risen far above "a drinking song".[14]
The first couplet is a humorous play on a verse from a Biblical epistle, James 1:16, which runs:[1]
- Do not go astray, my beloved brethren.
The verse meant that the brothers should not fall into sin. Bellman's Epistle, however, supposes that going astray meant picking up the wrong glass in a tavern.[1]
Jennie Nell, writing for the
The song has been recorded by
References
- ^ a b c d e "Epistel N:o 35". Bellman.net. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
- ^ a b Stugart, Martin (5 December 2005). "Fråga om Stockholm: Ingen sjöng Bellman som Fred Åkerström" [Question of Stockholm: Nobody sang Bellman like Fred Åkerström]. Dagens Nyheter.
- ^ a b Bellman 1790.
- ^ Bellman Society. Archived from the originalon 10 August 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- ^ "Bellman in Mariefred". The Royal Palaces [of Sweden]. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
- ISBN 978-0131369207.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, pp. 60–61.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, p. 39.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, pp. 81–83, 108.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, pp. 71–72 "In a tissue of dramatic antitheses—furious realism and graceful elegance, details of low-life and mythological embellishments, emotional immediacy and ironic detachment, humour and melancholy—the poet presents what might be called a fragmentary chronicle of the seedy fringe of Stockholm life in the 'sixties.".
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, p. 63.
- ^ Massengale 1979, pp. 175–176.
- ^ a b Bellman 1790
- ^ ISBN 0-8032-4750-8.
- ^ a b Toller, Eva. "Bröderna Fara Väl Vilse Ibland – Epistel Nr 35" (PDF). Eva Toller. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
- ^ Britten Austin 1977, p. 40.
- ^ Massengale 1979, pp. 147–148
- Bellman Society. Archivedfrom the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2016. earlier published in Hwad Behagas? no 3–4, 2015
- ^ Hassler & Dahl 1989, p. 284.
- ^ "Bröderna fara väl vilse ibland". YouTube. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
Sources
- Bellman, Carl Michael (1790). Fredmans epistlar. Stockholm: By Royal Privilege.
- ISBN 978-3-932759-00-0.
- Britten Austin, Paul (1977). Fredman's Epistles and Songs. Stockholm: Reuter and Reuter. OCLC 5059758.
- Hassler, Göran; ISBN 91-7448-742-6. (contains the most popular Epistles and Songs, in Swedish, with sheet music)
- ISBN 91-7736-059-1. (with facsimiles of sheet music from first editions in 1790, 1791)
- ISBN 91-554-0849-4.