Schubert's serenade

With lyrics by Moshe-Leyb Halpern, a renowned Yiddish poet

Yiddish poet Moyshe-Leyb Halpern spent his adolescence in Vienna, learning to be a sign painter. While there, he studied German poetry and published his first poems in German. Halpern’s time in Vienna is mostly undocumented.

In 1908, he moved to New York, where he wrote the Yiddish poems that would immortalize him. But in 1914, “Schubert’s Famous Serenade, for voice and piano, Yiddish translation by M.L. Halpern” was published, copyrighted by Jos. P. Katz. Perhaps Katz saw a market for Schubert’s Serenade among music lovers who were more familiar with Yiddish than German and in fact, the original German text by Ludwig Rellstab is absent from this edition of the serenade, replaced by Halpern’s lyrics in the transliteration of the era.

Though he was a widely-published writer, Halpern struggled to earn a living. Translating a romantic German text that he probably knew and respected into Yiddish may have been a way for him to make some easy money. The English translation was prepared by H.J. Margolis. Margolis includes lines such as “No betraying ear will lurk us” and “They well interpret lover’s sighing”, and there’s a sprinkling of “thees” and even a “thine” throughout the text. These are the conventional verbal ornaments of English poetry that signaled high culture to early twentieth century America.

The English translation by Margolis is a wrong turn on the road from Rellstab’s romantic German text to Halpern’s tender, yearning lyrics, so unlike the bitter, powerful verses that made him immortal. Perhaps the brooding beauty of Schubert’s music conquered Halpern’s acerbic outlook and inspired him with its message of innocent love and longing. Halpern’s lyrics are a bridge between the high German culture so esteemed by enlightened Jews of Europe and the heymish Yiddish of the New York Jewish street.

I translated Halpern’s lyrics into modern English and made recordings of the song in both Yiddish and English.

Translation of Halpern’s lyrics:

My prayers to you are floating in stillness
Through the eventide.
Beauty fills the quiet garden
Come down here to my side.

Barely heard, the trees are rustling,
While the moon shines so bright.
No one will disturb us here,
My dearest, have no fright.
Dearest, have no fright.

Nightingales are crooning and singing
Sounds so wondrous and fair
Songs to you that say I love you
How I weep in despair.

Nightingales can feel longing
Wailing love and pain,
As they seek to move your heart
Fearing to sing in vain.

Free your heart to twilight’s beauty
Don’t push me away,
Come, oh come, my only one
Oh come, oh come and stay.

Halpern’s text in the sheet music:

Recording with Halpern’s text:

Recording with English translation: