Opp Amaryllis!

{{Infobox musical composition

| name = "{{nowrap|{{lang|sv|Opp Amaryllis!|italic=no}}}}"

| type = Art song

| composer =

| image = Opp Amaryllis!.jpg

| image_upright = 1.2

| alt =

| caption = Sheet music

| translation = Up, Amaryllis!

| catalogue =

| dedication =

| text = poem by Carl Michael Bellman

| written = 1773

| language = Swedish

| melody =

| composed =

| published = 1791 in Fredman's Songs

| scoring = voice and cittern

}}

Opp Amaryllis! (Up, Amaryllis!) is one of the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's songs from his 1791 collection, Fredman's Songs, where it is No. 31. The song is a graceful pastorale in rococo style, involving a sleeping nymph who is invited to come fishing upon the sea's stormy wave. In reality, the nymph is a Swedish woman, Wilhelmina Norman, the stormy wave is a Swedish waterway, and the progression from shore to fishing-boat can equally well be read as a seduction. It is one of Bellman's best-known and best-loved songs, and has been recorded by musicians including Folke Andersson and Edvard Andreasson.

Context

The eponymous character Amaryllis is taken from classical tales. In Ancient Greek literature, Theocritus's Idylls portray a goatherd singing a serenade outside the cave of the nymph Amaryllis.{{cite web |title=Theocritus, Idylls |url=https://www.loebclassics.com/view/theocritus-poems_i-xxx/2015/pb_LCL028.59.xml |publisher=Loeb Classical Library |access-date=29 December 2020}} In Ancient Roman literature, Amaryllis was a heroine in Virgil's Eclogues, a suite of pastoral poems.{{cite web |last=Virgil |title=Virgil's Eclogues |url=http://www.virgil.org/eclogues/characters.htm |website=virgil.org |access-date=29 December 2020}}

Song

= Melody and verse form =

{{listen |filename=CMB SG31.MID|title=Melody of Fredman's Song 31 |description=Bellman's {{music|time|3|4}} time melody for "Opp Amaryllis!"}}

The song is in Triple metre and is marked Menuetto. It has 4 verses, each consisting of 11 lines; lines 2-7 are short. The rhyming pattern of each verse is AA-B-CCC-B-DDD-B. No source has been identified for the melody, which may well have been composed by Bellman himself.{{sfn|Bellman|1984|pp=78, 134}}

= Lyrics =

File:Francesco Marti, A Nymph on a Dolphin, NGA 44292 (cropped).jpg style invokes classical images of the sea, with nymphs and dolphins. Medallion by Francesco Marti, A Nymph on a Dolphin, c. 1500|alt=Medallion of a nymph on a dolphin]]

The song, headed "Om fiskafänget" ("About catching fish"), is dated 1773, and was written for Bellman's opera Fiskarena.{{cite web |title=N:o 31 (Kommentar tab) |url=http://www.bellman.net/texter/sang.php?nr=31 |website=Bellman.net |language=sv |access-date=2 February 2022}}{{sfn|Bellman|1984|pp=78, 134}}

The song invites the sleeping nymph, in reality Wilhelmina Norman (who Bellman courted in the summer of 1773), to awaken and come fishing.{{sfn|Bellman|1989|pp=209-212}} The waterways, too, are Swedish, with familiar fish like pike.{{sfn|Lönnroth|2005|pp=120–124}}

class="wikitable" \|+ Verse translations of the second stanza of song 31
Carl Michael Bellman, 1791{{sfn\|Bellman\|1989\|p=209}} ! Charles Wharton Stork, 1917{{sfn\|Stork\|1917\|p=8}} ! Hendrik Willem Van Loon, 1939{{sfn\|Van Loon\|Castagnetta\|1939\|pp=83–84}} ! Paul Britten Austin, 1977{{sfn\|Britten Austin\|1977\|p=121}}
Kom nu och fiska, noten är bunden, Kom nu på stunden, Följ mig åt; Kläd på dig tröjan, Kjorteln och slöjan; Gäddan och löjan Ställ försåt. Vakna Amaryllis lilla, vakna; Lät mig ej ditt glada sällskap sakna; Bland Delphiner och Sirener nakna Sku vi nu plaska med vår lilla båt. \| Let's go a-fishing—nets are all spread now— Mope not in bed now, Quickly rise! Come thou, all bodiced, Kirtled so modest; Fish of the oddest Be our prize! Amaryllis, little one, awaken,— Lacking thee, of joy I'm quite forsaken; From our boat the spray will soon be shaken, As mid the dolphins and sirens it flies. \| Let's go a-fishing, nets are now spread, oh, Leave your cozy bed and follow me. Fasten your placket, Put on your jacket, Stop now all the racket, Hear my plea. Amaryllis, waken little one, Without you life is robbed of mirth and fun. Let's follow dolphins and with sirens run, And in our skiff, splash and dance over the sea. \| Come, come a-fishing! Ready our rod is; Fasten thy bodice, Skirt and coat. Cease then thy railing Little availing; Perch, pike and grayling Greedy float. Fairest Amaryllis, do not fly me, Nor the pleasure of these hours deny me. Where the dolphin rolls on billow briny Let us be splashing in our little boat.

class="wikitable"

|+ Verse translations of the second stanza of song 31

Carl Michael Bellman, 1791{{sfn|Bellman|1989|p=209}}

! Charles Wharton Stork, 1917{{sfn|Stork|1917|p=8}}

! Hendrik Willem Van Loon, 1939{{sfn|Van Loon|Castagnetta|1939|pp=83–84}}

! Paul Britten Austin, 1977{{sfn|Britten Austin|1977|p=121}}

Kom nu och fiska, noten är bunden,

Kom nu på stunden,

Följ mig åt;

Kläd på dig tröjan,

Kjorteln och slöjan;

Gäddan och löjan

Ställ försåt.

Vakna Amaryllis lilla, vakna;

Lät mig ej ditt glada sällskap sakna;

Bland Delphiner och Sirener nakna

Sku vi nu plaska med vår lilla båt.

| Let's go a-fishing—nets are all spread now—

Mope not in bed now,

Quickly rise!

Come thou, all bodiced,

Kirtled so modest;

Fish of the oddest

Be our prize!

Amaryllis, little one, awaken,—

Lacking thee, of joy I'm quite forsaken;

From our boat the spray will soon be shaken,

As mid the dolphins and sirens it flies.

| Let's go a-fishing, nets are now spread, oh,

Leave your cozy bed

and follow me.

Fasten your placket,

Put on your jacket,

Stop now all the racket,

Hear my plea.

Amaryllis, waken little one,

Without you life is robbed of mirth and fun.

Let's follow dolphins and with sirens run,

And in our skiff, splash and dance over the sea.

| Come, come a-fishing! Ready our rod is;

Fasten thy bodice,

Skirt and coat.

Cease then thy railing

Little availing;

Perch, pike and grayling

Greedy float.

Fairest Amaryllis, do not fly me,

Nor the pleasure of these hours deny me.

Where the dolphin rolls on billow briny

Let us be splashing in our little boat.

Reception and legacy

File:Landschaft mit einem Bach, über den eine hölzerne Brücke führt (SM 1649z).png

The Bellman scholar Lars Lönnroth calls the song a graceful pastorale in rococo style. He notes that people have taken his pastoral songs, of which this is "the best known", as completely conventional works following the classical template of a shepherd-poet in pursuit of his fair nymph. It indeed begins, Lönnroth writes, as an aubade or morning song, like a medieval Provençal troubadour's. The young fisherman wakens his beloved and, in the first stanza, asks her to come fishing with him in an Arcadian landscape peopled with mythic figures, including Morpheus the god of sleep and Neptune, god of the sea. In the next stanza, he bids her dress herself; in the third, to fetch her fishing-tackle, and in the last stanza to climb into his boat. This plays out as a simple sequence of theatrical scenes. But, writes Lönnroth, it can equally well be read as a seduction. The last stanza drops the pretence of going out to catch pike, and states openly that "Love shall rule/In our chests." The seascape, too, he writes, has suddenly changed from calm to stormy; but the shepherd sings that he can find comfort "In thy calm embrace." Lönnroth observes that in Fredman's Epistle No. 25, "Blåsen nu alla", Bellman goes further into full-blown grotesque, sharply contrasting the classical imagery with the drunken orgiastic reality; but in "Opp Amaryllis!", the poet shows his skill in creating drama from a simple shepherd-poem, and undermining the pastoral with discreet hints of storms and death.{{sfn|Lönnroth|2005|pp=120–124}}

Bellman's biographer Paul Britten Austin describes the song as "one of his most delightful, and for many years [it] was far and away the most popular. It goes to a charming air."{{sfn|Britten Austin|1967|p=103}} "Opp Amaryllis!" was recorded in 1924 by Folke Andersson and Edvard Andreasson for His Master's Voice.{{cite web |title=Opp Amaryllis by Folke Andersson, Edvard Andreasson |url=https://secondhandsongs.com/release/261222 |publisher=SecondHandSongs |access-date=27 June 2021 |ref=X 2205}} More recently, the song has been recorded many times; it was among the Bellman songs recorded in 1960 by Roland Bengtsson and Folke Sällström,{{cite web |last1=Bengtsson |first1=Roland |last2=Sällström |first2=Folke |title=Bellman, C. M.: Fredmans sånger (excerpts) (Sällström, Bengtsson) |url=https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=SLT33156 |publisher=Naxos |access-date=27 June 2021 |ref=SLT33156}} and in 1988 by the actor Mikael Samuelson.{{cite web |last=Samuelson |first=Mikael |author-link=Mikael Samuelson |title=Music of Carl Michael Bellman |url=https://www.allmusic.com/performance/works-mq0000945834?1624818320424 |publisher=AllMusic |access-date=27 June 2021 |ref=Artemis 7128}} The song was recorded in English by Martin Best in 1995.{{cite web |title=To Carl Michael with love : Martin Best sings the songs and epistles of Sweden's 18th century songwriter / Carl Michael Bellman Solna : EMI, cop. 1995 |url=https://smdb.kb.se/catalog/id/001508237 |publisher=Svensk MedieDatabas |access-date=27 June 2021 |ref=CD95-1139 }}

References

Sources

{{cite book |last=Bellman |first=Carl Michael |authorlink=Carl Michael Bellman |title=Fredmans epistlar |date=1790 |publisher=By Royal Privilege |location=Stockholm |url=http://litteraturbanken.se/#!/forfattare/BellmanCM/titlar/FredmansEpistlar/sida/v/faksimil}}
{{cite book |last=Britten Austin |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Britten Austin |title=The Life and Songs of Carl Michael Bellman: Genius of the Swedish Rococo |publisher=Allhem, Malmö American-Scandinavian Foundation |location=New York |date=1967 |isbn=978-3-932759-00-0}}
{{cite book |last=Britten Austin |first=Paul |title=Fredman's Epistles and Songs |location=Stockholm |publisher=Reuter and Reuter |year=1977 |oclc=5059758 }}
{{cite book |last=Bellman |first=Carl Michael |title=Bellman – en antologi|trans-title=Bellman – an anthology |publisher=En bok för alla |year=1989 |isbn=91-7448-742-6 |url=http://libris.kb.se/bib/7642413 |others= illustrated by Dahl, Peter; contributors : Hassler, Göran and Bagge, Ulf |author-link=Carl Michael Bellman}}
{{cite book |last=Bellman |first=Carl Michael |title=Fredmans epistlar & sånger |trans-title=The songs and epistles of Fredman|year=1984 |publisher=Informationsförlaget |location=Stockholm|isbn=91-7736-059-1 |url=http://libris.kb.se/bib/7663908 |editor1-link=Åse Kleveland |editor1-last=Kleveland |editor1-first=Åse |others=Ehrén, Svenolov (illus.) |author-link=Carl Michael Bellman }} (with facsimiles of sheet music from first editions in 1790, 1791)
{{cite book |last=Lönnroth |first=Lars |author-link=Lars Lönnroth |title=Ljuva karneval! : om Carl Michael Bellmans diktning |title-link=Ljuva karneval! |trans-title=Lovely Carnival! : about Carl Michael Bellman's Verse |publisher=Albert Bonniers Förlag |publication-place=Stockholm |year=2005 |isbn=978-91-0-057245-7 |oclc=61881374}}
{{cite book |last=Stork |first=Charles Wharton |author-link=Charles Wharton Stork |title=Anthology of Swedish Lyrics, 1750-1915 |url=https://archive.org/details/anthologyofswedi00stor/page/14/mode/2up |location=New York |publisher=The American-Scandinavian Foundation |year=1917}}
{{cite book |last1=Van Loon |first1=Hendrik Willem |author1-link=Hendrik Willem van Loon |last2=Castagnetta |first2=Grace |title=The Last of the Troubadours |publication-place=New York |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1939}}

External links

[http://www.bellman.net/texter/sang.php?nr=31 Text of Song 31] at Bellman.net

Category:1791 compositions

Category:Swedish songs

Category:Fredmans sånger