scribendi cacoethes

Remembering that little gem of a film,"Le maître de musique", in which Jose van Dam, baritone, acted well and sang beautifully - most beautifully of all, Mahler's setting of a poem by Friedrich Rückert - this approximation:

A RÜCKERT LIED

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

The world’s well lost to me
and I to it.  Much time
have I wasted in that place
where they now believe me dead.
And so I am, to the world –
for it nothing troubles me
what is believed there.

On the world’s senseless tumult
my back I have turned.
If rest in a realm of peace
be death in the mad world’s eyes,
then I am dead; well content
to live alone in the haven
of my love and of my song.

~ E.M.R.H.   19 September 2015