| "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" Roud #7666 |
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| Lyrics by | Jane Taylor |
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| Published | 1806 |
| Written | England |
| Language | English |
| Form | Nursery rhyme |
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a popular English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early 19th-century English poem, "The Star" by Jane Taylor. The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a collection of poems by Taylor and her sister Ann. It is sung to the tune of the French melody "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman", which was published in 1761 and later arranged by Mozart for a famous set of variations.[1][dead link] The English lyrics have five stanzas, although only the first is widely known. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7666.
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Lyrics [edit]
The English lyrics were first published as a poem with the title "The Star" by sisters Ann and Jane Taylor (1783–1824) in Rhymes for the Nursery in London in 1806.[2] The poem was written by Jane.[3]
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Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
'Till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark.
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
How I wonder what you are.
How I wonder what you are.
Biblical Interpretation
The poem has been said to have biblical interpretation of the Three_wise_men otherwise known as The Magi. In Christian tradition, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem to see "the one who had been born king of the Jews" as stated in the Bible, Matthew 2:2. [4] The third stanza of the poem is believed to refer to Matthew 2:9,10. Which explains the journey of the Magi "and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed."[5]
Appearances of the melody [edit]
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Many songs in various languages have been based on the "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" melody. In English, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", the "Alphabet Song", and a variant of it is used for "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep". It is also the basis of the Scots song Coulter's Candy[citation needed] and "What a Wonderful World".
The German Christmas carol "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann", with words by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, also uses the melody, as does the Hungarian Christmas carol "Hull a pelyhes fehér hó", the Dutch "Altijd is Kortjakje ziek", the Spanish "Campanita del Lugar," and the Turkish "Daha Dun Annemizin."
Several classical compositions have been inspired by this tune:
- Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je Maman" in G major (Wf XII: 2) (BR A 45) (1st publ. ca. 1880)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" (K. 265 / K. 300e) (1781 or 1782)
- Joseph Haydn, Andante of the 94th symphony, first performed in 1792
- Camille Saint-Saëns, Carnival of the Animals (1886), 12th movement (Fossiles) quotes the tune
- Ernő Dohnányi, Variations on a Nursery Tune, op.25 (1914)
- Erwin Schulhoff, Ten Variations on 'Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman' and Fugue
- John Corigliano, The Mannheim Rocket
- Franz Liszt, Album Leaf: "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" (1833) (S.163b)
- Theodor von Schacht, 3rd movement (Allegretto con variazioni) of his clarinet concerto in B flat major
- Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck, Variations and finale for organ on "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman", op. 90 (pub. 1828)
- Jean-Baptiste Cardon (1760–1803), Variations for harp on "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman"
First appearances of the melody and the original French text version [edit]
The original French rhyme Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman, was far from a children's rhyme. Apparently it originated in the first half of the 18th century. As there was no published version of the text before 1774, several slightly differing versions of what could have been the "original" version exist:
- Ah! vous dirai-je Maman?, as published in the early 20th century in a collection of French songs by Jean Gilleguin.
- Comparing two versions of "La Confidence" with the nursery rhyme version
In these versions a girl confides a secret to her mother: that she has been seduced by "Silvandre". Only in one version cited above did the girl apparently make a narrow escape ("Je m'échappai par bonheur"),[6] in the other versions the girl appears to have been "beaten" by L'Amour ("Love").
As for the history of the melody and the non-nursery rhyme version(s) of the French text:[7][8][citation needed]
- 1761: first publication of the music (without lyrics) of Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman in "Les Amusements d'une Heure et Demy" by Mr. Bouin (Paris), p. 1.
- Around 1765, the words and music appear in a manuscript entitled "Recueil de Chansons" under the title "Le Faux Pas", p. 43.
- 1774: earliest known printed publication of the lyrics together with the music in volume two of "Recueil de Romances" by M.D.L. (De Lusse) published in Brussels, under the title "La Confidence – Naive" (p. 75).
- Around 1780 (Paris): the words and music appear in sheet music under the title "Les Amours de Silvandre".
- 1785: First publication of Mozart's Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman variations.
- 1792: First performance of Haydn's Symphony 94 ("Surprise") in the Andante
As for the composition date of Mozart's Variations, for a time the variations were thought to have been composed in 1778, while Mozart stayed in Paris from April to September in that year, the assumption being that the melody of a French song could only have been picked up by Mozart while residing in France. For this presumed composition date, in the chronological catalogue of Mozart's compositions the composition was renumbered from K. 265 to K. 300e.[8] Later analysis of Mozart's manuscript of the composition by Wolfgang Plath rather indicated 1781-1782 as the probable composition date.[9]
The lyrics from "The Star" were first published with the tune in The Singing Master: First Class Tune Book in 1838.[3]
Other text versions [edit]
The song is a popular target for parodies. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat", is a parody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" recited by the Hatter during the mad tea-party, in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). It reads:
- Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
- How I wonder what you're at!
- Up above the world you fly,
- Like a tea tray in the sky.
- Twinkle, twinkle—[3]
The Hatter is interrupted in his recitation. "The Bat" was the nickname of Professor Bartholomew Price, one of the Dons at Oxford, a former teacher of Carroll's and well known to the Liddell family. It is one of the few parodies in the Alice books of which the original is still widely known.
The Elegants released a single adapted from this song called "Little Star", which made #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958.
An adaptation of the song, named "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Earth", was written by Charles Randolph Grean, Fred Hertz and Leonard Nimoy (Nimoy recites the text as Spock explaining how the star-people wish upon an earth and so forth). It is included on his first 1967 album Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music From Outer Space.
The song has been sampled by the American hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince on the track, "Twinkle, Twinkle (I'm Not a Star)" from their 1993 final studio album, Code Red.
A version using synonyms from Roget's Thesaurus exists.[10] An anonymous astronomy parody, quoted in Violent Universe by Nigel Calder (BBC, 1969), refers to pulsars and quasars. A different version of this parody attributed to George Gamow and Nigel Calder was published in Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction by Linda Sparke and John Gallagher (Cambridge University Press, 2000 - ISBN 0-521-59740-4).
The Girl Scouts of the USA placed a full page ad in the 19 March 2006 New York Times containing a version of the rhyme that was "resung by science" as part of their "Girls Go Tech" campaign.[11]
Vashti Bunyan, an English singer-songwriter, composed "Lily Pond" based on this tune. It can be found on her 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day. American singer Elizabeth Mitchell covers the song on her 2006 album You Are My Little Bird.
See also [edit]
Notes [edit]
- ^ "It also figures in the Andante of Haydn's 94th symphony. The melody was first known as 'Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman,' the music of which appeared (without words) in 1761 in 'Les Amusements d'une Heure et Demy' by Mr. Bouin (Paris), p. 1." [1]
- ^ I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 397-8.
- ^ a b c M. Cryer, Love Me Tender: The Stories Behind the World's Best-loved Songs (Frances Lincoln, 2009), pp. 83-5.
- ^ http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+2%3A1-16&version=NIV#en-NIV-23171
- ^ http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+2%3A1-16&version=NIV#en-NIV-23171
- ^ "?". Compuserve.com.[dead link] "Je m'échappai par bonheur". nerim.net. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
- ^ The chronology is based on an account by Bob Kosovsky, librarian at the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 2001
- ^ a b (in German:) Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, IX/26: Variationen für Klavier, Kritischer Bericht (Fischer, 1962), p. 58-59
- ^ Based on booklet notes by Robin Golding, 1991 for Daniel Barenboims Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas and Variations, EMI Classics 8 CD box No. 5 73915 2.
- ^ G. Hughes, A history of English words (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000), p. 40.
- ^ [2][dead link]
External links [edit]
- Sheet music on Wikifonia
- Lullabies of Europe/Languages from the Cradle A European Union, government funded, education project to collect lullabies (in their native language) from across Europe - includes samples in 7 languages.
- BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour, article (with audio)
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