Hvila vid denna källa
"Hvila vid denna källa" | |
---|---|
Art song | |
English | Rest by this spring |
Written | 1790 |
Text | poem by Carl Michael Bellman |
Language | Swedish |
Published | 1790 in Fredman's Epistles |
Scoring | voice and cittern |
Hvila vid denna källa (in modern Swedish "Vila ...", Rest by this spring) is a song by the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman from his 1790 collection, Fredman's Epistles, where it is No. 82, the final Epistle. It is subtitled "Eller Oförmodade avsked, förkunnat vid Ulla Winblads frukost en sommarmorgon i det gröna. Pastoral dedicerad till Kgl. Sekreteraren Leopoldt" ("Or unexpected parting, proclaimed at Ulla Winblad's breakfast one summer morning in the countryside. Pastoral dedicated to the Royal Secretary Leopoldt"). It depicts the Rococo muse Ulla Winblad, as the narrator offers a "little breakfast"[1] of "red wine with burnet, and a newly-shot snipe"[1] in a pastoral setting in the Stockholm countryside.
The popular song, described as one of Sweden's best-loved, has been used in at least 16 Swedish films. Its melody appears to be one of the few, possibly the only one, composed by Bellman. In the song's last stanza, the dying Bellman, in words attributed to the dying Fredman, says farewell.
Context
Song
Melody and verse form
The song is in
4 to 2
4 time, which Bellman is known to have been skilful at. Hildebrand argued that the melody was Bellman's; Olof Åhlström wrote that it must have been borrowed from an unknown source. Bellman set two other songs, "Skåden den lugna stranden" (See the calm shore) and "Hjertat det kännes klappa" (The heart is felt beating) to the same melody.[10]
Lyrics
Carl Michael Bellman, 1790[1][11] |
Eva Toller's prose, 2004[12] |
Hendrik Willem Van Loon's verse,
1939[13] |
Paul Britten Austin's verse, 1977[14] |
---|---|---|---|
Hvila vid denna källa, |
Rest by this spring, |
Come, love, and rest a while now, |
Come now, ourselves reposing, |
Reception and legacy
Carina Burman writes in her biography of Bellman that Fredman does finally say goodbye in this, the last Epistle, as the subtitle ("An unexpected departure...") makes clear, as does the final stanza:[15]
Äntlig i detta gröna, Får du mitt sista afsked röna; Ulla! farväl min Sköna, Vid alla Instrumenters ljud.
Finally in this greenery, you'll hear my last farewell; Ulla! adieu my lovely, to the sound of all the instruments.
Indeed, Burman notes, the Epistle represents Bellman's dying words as well as Fredman's, and perhaps Ulla Winblad's too; at least, she certainly dies in one sense,[d] and perhaps in the other as well; Bellman knew that he was writing his last Epistles.[16]
All the same, Burman remarks, the song is a bright counterpart to the farewell of Epistle 79, with Ulla's beauty, green grass and music instead of apocalypse.[15]
The Epistle's pastoral tone and descriptions of food are to an extent anticipated, writes Burman, in Bellman's longest poem,
Lars Lönnroth, writing in Svenska Dagbladet, suggests that the "spring" in the Epistle was in fact not a stream in summer meadows but a fashionable spa, perhaps Djurgårsbrunn on what was in Bellman's time the edge of Stockholm.[19]
Henrik Mickos, in the 2011 Bellman lecture, discussed what the "pimpinella" of the first verse might be, concluding that salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor) was quite likely, given it was known at the time as pimpinella, and was more common in Sweden then than in the 21st century. Mickos dismisses the possibility that it was aniseed (Pimpinella anisum), which was used to flavour brännvin but not as the song has it ("red wine and pimpinella") a wine-based punch.[18]
Epistle 82 has appeared in at least 16 Swedish films from 1929 onwards.[20] It is included in the 1894 Danish High School Songbook.[21] It has been described as one of Sweden's best-loved songs.[22] It has been recorded by Fred Åkerström, as the title track of his third album of Bellman interpretations in 1977. An earlier performance by the noted Bellman interpreter Sven-Bertil Taube on his Fredmans Epistlar och Sånger, recorded 1959–1963, was re-released on an EMI-Svenska CD in 1983.[23] The Epistle has been translated into English by Eva Toller.[24]
Notes
References
- ^ a b c d 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.
- ^ a b Massengale 1979, pp. 205–206.
- ^ a b c Hassler & Dahl 1989, pp. 189–194.
- ^ Toller, Eva (2004). "Rest by This Spring – Epistle No. 82". Eva Toller. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
- ^ Van_LoonCastagnetta1939, pp. 76–78.
- ^ Britten Austin 1977, p. 95.
- ^ a b c Burman 2019, pp. 469–470.
- ^ Burman 2019, pp. 465, 469–470.
- ^ Burman 2019, pp. 379–380.
- ^ a b Mickos, Henrik (2011). "Bellmans Pimpinella" [Bellman's Pimpinella] (in Swedish). Bellman Gesellschaft.de. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ Lönnroth, Lars (22 January 2002). "Ett paradis på jorden. Om den svenska kurortskulturen 1680-1880 Vattenhål för kur och kurtis". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ "Vila vid denna källa" (in Swedish). Svensk Filmdatabas. Archived from the original on 12 March 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
- ^ "Vila vid denna källa". Højskolesangbogen (in Swedish). Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ "Information om Fredman i Bellmans epistlar". Stockholm Gamla Stan. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
- ^ Hassler & Dahl 1989, pp. 278, 283.
- ^ Toller, Eva. "Glimmande nymf - Epistel Nr 82". Eva Toller. Retrieved 10 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.
- ISBN 978-9100141790.
- 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.
- Van Loon, Hendrik Willem; Castagnetta, Grace (1939). The Last of the Troubadours. New York: Simon & Schuster.
External links
- Text of Epistle 82 at Bellman.net
- Analysis of Epistle 82 by Lars Huldén, Bellman Society2011