Translating Music (Volume 1)

by Richard Pevear

The first volume in the series is by one of the most renowned contemporary translators into English. He discusses his recent experience of translating Tolstoy’s War and Peace , and offers alongside his illuminating essay a wonderful rendition of Pushkin’s long poem The Tale of the Preacher and His Man Bumpkin . The poem is printed in Russian and English and is accompanied by drawings by Pushkin himself.

36 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2012

About the author

Pevear earned a B.A. degree from Allegheny College in 1964, and a M.A. degree from the University of Virginia in 1965. He has taught at the University of New Hampshire, The Cooper Union, Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and the University of Iowa. In 1998, he joined the faculty of the American University of Paris (AUP), where he taught courses in Russian literature and translation. In 2007, he was named Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at AUP, and in 2009 he became Distinguished Professor Emeritus. Besides translating Russian classics, Pevear also translated from the French ( Alexandre Dumas, Yves Bonnefoy, Jean Starobinski), Italian ( Alberto Savinio), Spanish, and Greek (Aias, by Sophocles, in collaboration with Herbert Golder). He is also the author of two books of poems (Night Talk and Other Poems, and Exchanges). Pevear is mostly known for his work in collaboration with Larissa Volokhonsky on translation of Russian classics.

Reviews

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Richard Pevear's Translating Music is the first number of The Cahiers Series, a set of expensive chapbooks published by Sylph Editions. It's beautifully designed and pretentiously titled. Pevear provides a translation of Pushkin's "The Tale of the Preacher and His Man Bumpkin," which is entertaining. The Russian original appears verso. The second, more substantial part of the chapbook is "a talk" on translation Pevear gave at a conference in 2006 at Tolstoy's estate Yasnaya Polyana. For readers of his translation of War and Peace this is particularly interesting, although some of it is repeated in his introduction to that massive volume.

I'm a fan of chapbooks and this is an enviable collection – but probably a bit too precious for me.