Sissel sings: ‘Vaaren’

Ack. I’m only about 60% done with The Book That Never Ends (for review, not one I’m writing), and I’ve got lots of translating work to do, so what shall I post? Hm. It’s May now, which means that Syttende Mai (May 17), Norway’s Constitution Day, is coming up. Find some music about that. Anything from Sissel I haven’t seen?

Well, what do you know? Here’s Sissel singing Edvard Grieg’s “Våren,” (Last Spring). It seems to have been filmed 10 years ago for a Constitution Day celebration at Eidsvoll. That’s significant because Eidsvoll is a Norwegian national monument – the place where an assembly of delegates drafted and passed the country’s constitution in 1814. Which is what the holiday is all about.

Spring finally seems to have come to Minneapolis, and I’m enjoying it when I have time to pay attention. (I much prefer that to having no time because I’m out of work.) Spring’s been late in coming, but that makes it all the more enjoyable. I earned this spring, blast it!

Enjoy your weekend.

5 thoughts on “Sissel sings: ‘Vaaren’”

  1. I recommend Russell’s live performance of Roy Or is one’s In Dreams. How could spell check do that? Sissel. Orbison.

  2. Thank you – this was lovely! The subtitle translation was very different from the English text we sang in a choral version in high school – time to do my homework on Aasmund Vinje in general and this poem in particular, however belatedly.

  3. Thanks! And, there is the added dimension of ‘singable’ translation, related to but not always identical with the business of metrical translation of verse.

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