I came across this video on Facebook. A friend posted it with the comment, “Give it a listen. You will be surprised.”
These two look like such amateurs — even hicks — that I expected my ears to hurt. But I was surprised.
I am repeatedly astonished at the musical sophistication of which children are capable. What is required, though, is that musically sophisticated adults communicate to children what music (not to mention Italian) should sound like. If children are exposed to that, then they seem to acquire music as readily as they acquire language. And watch out! The language they hear is the language they will acquire.
This girl has the voice of an angel.
Quando sono solo
Sogno all’orizzonte
E mancan le parole
Sì lo so che non c’è luce
In una stanza quando manca il sole
Se non ci sei tu con me, con me
Su le finestre
Mostra a tutti il mio cuore
Che hai acceso
Chiudi dentro me
La luce che
Hai incontrato per strada
Time to say goodbye
Paesi che non ho mai
Veduto e vissuto con te
Adesso si li vivrò
Con te partirò
Su navi per mari
Che, io lo so
No, no, non esistono più
It’s time to say goodbye
I cannot find any good English translations. I’ll keep looking, or have a go at it myself.
2 Comments
Hi David.
I like your amateurs here, and from there, it’s got me wondering if you’re familiar with the child prodigy singer, Jackie Evancho, who made her mark with this same song after appearing on ‘America’s Got Talent’ in 2010 at the age of ten. When she was discovered on that show, people didn’t believe it was actually real, her voice was already so mature and fully realized. She ended out the season singing a duet with Sarah Brightman who looked at the time as though she too didn’t quite believe it was real.
Here’s an English translation of the lyrics for you that I observe from just my own impression to be the best of several I looked at (though I know no Italian).
When I’m alone
I dream on the horizon
and words fail;
yes, I know there is no light
in a room where the sun is absent,
if you are not with me, with me.
At the windows
show everyone my heart
which you set alight;
enclose within me
the light you
encountered on the street.
Time to say goodbye
to countries I never
saw and shared with you,
now, yes, I shall experience them.
I’ll go with you
on ships across seas
which, I know,
no, no, exist no longer.
It’s time to say goodbye…
When you are far away
I dream on the horizon
And words fail,
and, Yes, I know
that you are with me;
you, my moon, are here with me,
my sun, you are here with me,
with me, with me, with me.
— Not only do I recommend you check out these two Jackie duets of ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ (which are unforgettable each in their own way), but the Dubai Fountain at the foot of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai also hosts its own dazzlement of the Sarah Brightman/Andrea Bocelli version of ‘Con Te Partirò (Time to Say Goodbye)’ that on artistic and engineering merit makes the word ‘impressive’ look like understatement. And, finally, if you’re still unfamiliar, there’s a Jackie Evancho/GoT cover of ‘The Rains of Castamere’ that you must hear.
Best regards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvhQSvQKlSQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvRPMQ6w7pg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOxmalMLTOc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWT9kKS8RBE
Hi, Malinda: Thank you for the translation and for the links. I will check out the links. I suspect that the two in this video are imitating Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, but I don’t have a problem with that, because they do it so well and because Bocelli/Brightman set the standard for this piece.
I don’t have any Italian either, but these lyrics are not hard to read by analogy to Spanish and French, doing a little philology where Italian differs. I think it is generally assumed that the song is about lovers saying goodbye. It’s possible to read it as being about death. But I think this song is about love that was never requited. The singer, perhaps no longer able to bear the aloneness, is letting go, and by an almost desperate act of will is endeavoring to transfer love away from a particular person whom he cannot have toward archetypes that can be relied upon to always be there — the sun and the moon, for example, and to the ships and seas of imagination. Because it’s a duet, it may seem that they are singing to each other. But I don’t hear it that way. Both voices are singing about the same state of existential despair.
The Greeks had a god and avenger of unrequited love, by the way — Anteros, brother of Eros. I don’t detect a cruel act of rejection in this song, though, as was the case with Meles and Timagoras.
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