User:Grover cleveland/Tchaikovsky Legend


 * Roses and Thorns (Stoddard, Songs of Summer, 1857) ("In later editions of his work, Stoddard changed his title to "Legend", but it's still called "Roses and Thorns" here (1880, complete poems).


 * It was actually originally published in the May 1856 issue of "Graham's Magazine" (front page of issue)
 * "ЛЕГЕНДА" (Russian translation by Aleksey Pleshcheyev) (1877) (in journal Семья и школа, Sem'ia i shkola, Family and school, 1877, no. 4). (another link)
 * Tchaikovsky, Op. 54 (1883) (starts on page 9 of the PDF) (song, voice + piano) ("Tchaikovsky found the text in Snowdrop).


 * Tchaikovsky arranged for voice and orchestra (1884, for tenor Dmitry Usatov).


 * Tchaikovsky arranged it for choir (1889) (1891 New York times report here; Programme here).


 * English version (tr. Geoffrey Dearmer) (by 1913) (note the translator would have been at most 20 years old) (introduction, including thanks to the young Dearmer). (front cover).


 * Commentary on text (Google Books)

Words
The words are based on the poem "Roses and Thorns" by American poet Richard Henry Stoddard, originally published in Graham's Magazine of May 1856. Stoddard's poem was translated into Russian by poet, Aleksey Pleshcheyev and published in the Rurrisn journal Sem'ia i shkola ("Family and School") in 1877. Pleshcheyev described the origin of the poem only as "translated from the English", without crediting Stoddard, the nature of whose contribution was thus lost.

When Legend is sung by English-speaking choirs, the words used are usually those of Geoffrey Dearmer, who translated Pleschcheyev's Russian text back into English for the English Carol Book (1913). Dearmer himself was only 20 years old when he wrote the words. While Pleshcheyev's Russian lyrics are a literal translation of Stoddard, and also copy the original rhyming scheme ABCB, Dearmer uses considerable poetic licence and a new rhyming scheme of AABB.

NOTE: In the Bible, it is the Roman soldiers, not the Jews, who put the crown of thorn on Jesus' head. (Matt 27, Mark 15, John 19).