July 3 おおカリフォルニア！(14) おおスザンナ！ (14) Oh! California Oh! Susanna 諸版の検討(8) Random House 版 (1946)

July 03, 2008 (Thursday)

いま、アメリカ西海岸は7月3日夜9時をまわったところです。明日のアメリカ合衆国独立記念日は図書館が休みなだけでなく、小学校（サマースクール）もアダルト・スクール（英語）も休みで、あとレストランの一部も休みで。

　 　昨日言及した、John Tasker Howard が関わった、第二次大戦後まもなくの50曲をおさめるハードカヴァーの楽譜本。実は編者が明記されていません。

　　　A Treasury of Stephen Foster. New York: Random House, 1946. Foreword by Deems Taylor; Historical Notes by John Tasker Howard; Arrangements by Ray Lev and Dorothy Berliner Commins; Illustrated by William Sharp. 222pp.

Deems Taylor の"Foreword" (pp. 7-8) は1ページと3分の2ぐらいの短いもので・・・と書いている最中にぽんぽこぽんぽこおとがするのでベランダに出てみると対岸で花火があがってました。

　　　と、えーと、「茶髪のジェニー」（ちがうか）のもつ力を語ったあと、フォスターがだまされ搾取されたという一般的な見方に抗して、フォスターを搾取したのはただふたりだけ、「故郷の人々」の作者をかたったクリスティーと、「おおスザンナ」を買ったかもらったかしてそれによって得た収入をフォスターとわけあわなかったピーターズだ、ちうようなちょっと偏った話のあとは、フォスターの作品のもつ力について語り、その秘密は、アメリカの音楽文化につねに存在したギャップを埋めるのに力があったからだと言います。――

It [his secret] was, I think, that he helped to fill a gap that had always existed in our musical culture. Techinically, we have no folksongs. Our ancestors, coming here from all quarters of the globe, brought with them the folksongs of what had been their native lands. These songs went into the melting pot and emerged, warped and often corrupted. They were recognizable, but they were not, and are not, peculiary ours. It is ironic that the only race that developed a folksong literature in this country is the race that was brought here against its will, and was and has been the most brutally exploited of all--the Negro. The Negro spirituals and Stephen Foster's songs are the nearest to completely indigenous folksongs that we possess.

この一節の前半は、ひとつ前にとりあげた１９３９年のガリ版の序文と似たものを語っていますが、後半は黒人音楽とフォークソングをちょっと同一視しすぎている感じがあります（もちろん２０世紀というか１９世紀終わりからのジャズ、ブルース、あるいはゴスペル、そして20世紀後半にそれらがfuseしてロックを生んで、みたいなことを考えると黒人音楽の力は大きいのだけれど、フォスターに関してはちょっとずれているように思われます（よくわからんけど）。でも、アメリカンネスということとのつながりで引いておきます。

     John Tasker Howard はこの本では曲ごとに冒頭に "Historical Notes" を書いているのですが、Taylor に続けて、しかしTaylor より長く5ページびっしりで "Stephen Collins Foster" という題の小伝を冒頭に執筆しています(pp. 9-12)。

　　　[. . .] Stephen was a good bookkeeper; there is no evidence to support the legends that he was an idler and neglected his work.  But he was always primarily interested in writing music and verses, and he spent much of his spare time cultivating the acquaintance of minstrel performers who might sing his songs in public.  Some of these singers were unscrupulous and took the manuscript copies to publishers who promptly issued pirated editions.  When Stephen himself found a publisher to issue Oh! Susanna and Old Uncle Ned, several other firms had already published these songs.

      Oh! Susanna was probably composed before Stephen went to Cincinnati, but it was while he was there that he came in touch with W. C. Peters, a music publisher Stephen's family had known in Pittsburgh.  Stephen gave Peters a number of songs, either for $100, or as an outright present, we do not know which.  Peters made a fortune from them and Foster had no royalty interest.  Instead, he gained from the songs the fame he needed to establish himself as a song-writer.  Oh! Susanna became a folksong almost overnight.  The Forty-niners caught it up and sang it on their way to California, and there was hardly a minnstrel troupe that did not sing it at every performance.

      As a result of thsi success, two publishers, one in New York and the other in Baltimore, offered Stephen royalty contracts and agreed to pay him two cents for every copy of his songs they sold. [. . .] (p. 10)

 

     "Oh! Susanna" は31から33ページに譜面に2番まで、あと3番が歌詞だけ最後に載っています。曲の前に "historical note" がついています。――

 Oh! Susanna was written for the minstrel shows, and like many minstrel songs, it has served other purposes, too.  Within a year after it was first published, it became the marching song of the "forty-ningers" on their way to California, and today it is considered the theme song of the gold-rush and the slogan of pioneers.

    Foster himself never derived much financial profit from the song, even though it established his reputation as a song-writer.  According to tradition, he gave it (together with several other of his early works) to W. C. Peters, a music publisher of Cincinnati adn Louisville.  Some of Foster's friends said that Stephen made Peters an outright present of the songs, and others claim that he received $100 for them.  Whichever version of the story is true, the transaction amounted to a gift, for Peters is said to have made $10,000 from Oh! Susanna.

    Peters copyrighted the song December 30, 1848, but it had been issued by another publisher (C. Holt, Jr., of New York) in a pirated edition ten months earlier, and copyrighted February 25, 1848.  Within three years from that date eighteen further pirated editions were printed by various publishers. In those days copyright laws were lax, and composers who were in the habit of giving manuscript copies of their songs to minstrel performers were apt to find that unscrupulous singers would take the songs to publishers and often represent themselves as the authors.

    Early editions of Oh! Susanna are prized by collectors of historic sheet-music, and the Holt edition is a rare treasure.  Accoriding to present knowledge, only three copies of the first edition are known to be in existence.

   ちょっと眠くて9時過ぎどころか11時すぎてしまったので、訳はいずれ補うことにして、歌詞だけ書き留めておきます。おやすみなさい。

1.
I come from Alabama
with my banjo on my knee;
I’se gwan to Lou'siana 
My true lub for to see.
It rain'd all night de day I left,
De weadder it was dry;
The sun so hot I froze to def,
Susanna, don’t you cry.
Oh! Susanna, do not cry for me;
I come from Alabama, Wid my banjo on my knee.
2.
I had a dream de udder night,
when ebry ting was still;
I thought I saw Susanna dear,
a coming down de hill,
The buckweat cake was in her mouf,
de tear was in her eye,
Say I, I'se coming from de souf,
Susanna don't you cry.
3.
I soon will be in new Orleans,
And den I'll look all 'round,
And when I find Susanna,
I'll fall upon de ground.
But if I do not find her,
Dis darkey'll surely die,
And when I'm dead and buried,
Susanna don't you cry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

タグ：text 歌詞 S. C. Foster アメリカ スティーヴン・フォスター ミンストレル・ショー Oh! Susanna おおスザンナ