If you would like to use our texts and translations, please click here for more information.
Translation
Ballad of the queen who died of love
English translation ©
Richard Stokes
In Bohemia there lived a Queen,
The King of Thule’s gentle sister,
There was never a queen more beautiful,
She reigned through beauty alone.
The great Troubadour of Bohemia,
One sad russet autumn evening,
Murmured: ‘I love you’, that old refrain!
Crazed souls and such crazed hearts!...
And the white-skinned beauty
Was so loved by the gentle poet,
That of a sudden her white soul
Gave up the ghost and fled to the stars…
The great bells of Bohemia
And the little bells of Thule
Sang the last Honsanna
Of the Queen who died of love.
The King of Thule’s gentle sister,
There was never a queen more beautiful,
She reigned through beauty alone.
The great Troubadour of Bohemia,
One sad russet autumn evening,
Murmured: ‘I love you’, that old refrain!
Crazed souls and such crazed hearts!...
And the white-skinned beauty
Was so loved by the gentle poet,
That of a sudden her white soul
Gave up the ghost and fled to the stars…
The great bells of Bohemia
And the little bells of Thule
Sang the last Honsanna
Of the Queen who died of love.
Composer
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. In the 1920s and 1930s he was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. He was one of the first composers to acknowledge the potential of recording in making…
Performances
Previously performed at:
- Notes of Old 25 Oct 2024
- 17. Alchemy, Magic and the Legend of Faust 14 Oct 2019