Natalia Macfarren

Natalia Macfarren
Born
Clarina Thalia Andrae

1827
Lübeck
Died1916
Bakewell
Occupation(s)Contralto singer
Pianist and piano teacher
Music translator
Known forTranslations of operas into English
SpouseGeorge Alexander Macfarren
ChildrenClarina Thalia Macfarren (m. Francis William Davenport)

Natalia Macfarren (née Clarina Thalia Andrae, 1827 – 1916) was a German-English contralto singer and music translator. She produced influential translations of Italian and German musical texts such as choral music and opera into English from the 1870s to the 1890s, sometimes introducing them to the English-speaking world for the first time. She is particularly noted for her translations of operatic works, especially those by Wagner.

Life

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She was born Clarina Thalia Andrae in Lübeck in 1827 to a German bandmaster who became attached to an English regiment after moving the family to England in the 1830s.[1][2]

In September 1841, she entered the Royal Academy of Music as a pianist and contralto.[3] She married one of her instructors, composer George Alexander Macfarren, on 27 September 1844.[4] They had a daughter.[3]

Macfarren as the Page in King Charles II. 1849 lithograph by Edward Grimstone

Her operatic debut came in 1849 when she appeared in the first performance of her husband’s opera King Charles II.[5] Her short performing career also included appearing as a soloist in the 1850–1 season of the Anacreontic Society.[6]

She then turned her attention to teaching and translation. In 1868 she published an Elementary Course for Vocalizing and Pronouncing the English Language. One of her pupils was Gilbert and Sullivan performer Alice Barnett.[7]

Translation

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One of Macfarren's translations for Novello

Natalia Macfarren began translating music for Novello and Company in 1869. She selected and adapted songs for Novello's catalogue of choral and instrumental music. When they began an operatic series in 1871, she was selected as their translator, sometimes also working as editor, for works in German and Italian.[8] She was one of the first translators to introduce the works of Wagner to an English-speaking audience, including Lohengrin (1872) and Tannhäuser (1873).[5]

Macfarren often translated the works of deceased artists, allowing her freedom in her approach.[8] Although she corresponded with Grieg to get his approval of her translations, he was not impressed with her work;[9] however, Max Bruch praised and continued to use her as a translator.[10]

Although her translations sometimes contained archaisms[11] or suffered from a lack of proofreading,[8] they were praised for their accuracy and flair, and Pierre Degott credits them with making 'enormous impact…in the advancement and development of the operatic form in the English-speaking world.'[1]

Outside of the operatic form, she was a translator and early supporter of Adolf Bernhard Marx,[12] and her translations of Brahms' Lieder proved influential on later English versions.[11] She also translated works of musical non-fiction such as Eduard Devrient's My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.[13]

Natalia Macfarren in 1905.

Operas translated

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Folk music

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Natalia disseminated English and Czech folk songs, collaborating with John Oxenford on a two-volume selection of William Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, published as Old English Ditties. Unlike her conservative approach to translation, Macfarren and Oxenford would sometimes alter the lyrics to these folk songs if they believed they could be improved.[14] She also translated Dvořák's Czech Gypsy Songs (from the German).[15]

Death

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She died in Bakewell on 9 April 1916.[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b Degott, Pierre (2007). Dow, Gillian (ed.). "Natalia Macfarren (1827–1916): a nineteenth-century translator/mediator for the operatic cause". Translators, Interpreters, Mediators: Women Writers 1700–1900: 225. ISBN 978-3-03911-055-1.
  2. ^ Loges, Natasha; Tunbridge, Laura (2020-05-05). German Song Onstage: Lieder Performance in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Indiana University Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-253-04703-8.
  3. ^ a b Hamilton, Katie (2020). Tunbridge, Laura; Loges, Natasha (eds.). "Natalia Macfarren and the English German Lied". German Song Onstage: 88. ISBN 978-0-253-04703-8.
  4. ^ Legge, R. H. (2004). "Macfarren, George (1788–1843), playwright and theatre manager". In Mills, Rebecca (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17497. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 2024-08-21. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Jacobs, Arthur (2002). "Macfarren [née Andrae], Natalia". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O009592. Retrieved 2024-08-21.
  6. ^ Johnston, Dr Roy; Plummer, Dr Declan (2015-12-28). The Musical Life of Nineteenth-Century Belfast. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-7546-6325-6.
  7. ^ Gänzl, Kurt (2021-10-01). Gilbert and Sullivan: The Players and the Plays. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-1-4384-8547-8.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hamilton (2020), p. 89.
  9. ^ Foster, Beryl (2007). The Songs of Edvard Grieg. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-343-7.
  10. ^ Fifield, Christopher (2005). Max Bruch: His Life and Works. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-136-5.
  11. ^ a b Loges, Natasha; Tunbridge, Laura (2020-05-05). German Song Onstage: Lieder Performance in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Indiana University Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-0-253-04703-8.
  12. ^ Applegate, Celia (2017-01-01). The Necessity of Music: Variations on a German Theme. University of Toronto Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-4875-2048-9.
  13. ^ Devrient, Eduard; Macfarren, Natalia, eds. (2013), "MY RECOLLECTIONS OF FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY, AND HIS LETTERS TO ME", My Recollections of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and his Letters to Me, Cambridge Library Collection - Music, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–304, doi:10.1017/CBO9781107239388.003, hdl:1802/17947, ISBN 978-1-108-06885-7, retrieved 2024-08-22
  14. ^ Gregory, E. David (2006-04-13). Victorian Songhunters: The Recovery and Editing of English Vernacular Ballads and Folk Lyrics, 1820-1883. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-1-4616-7417-7.
  15. ^ Piotrowska, Anna G. (2013-12-03). Gypsy Music in European Culture: From the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries. Northeastern University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-55553-837-8.
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