PODCAST

Cambridge Conversations in Translation - 25 May 2016 - Translation and Music (Panel)

Lucile Desblache (Professor of Translation and Transcultural Studies, University of Roehampton)Andrew Jones (Selwyn College, Cambridge)Judi Palmer (Former Surtitle Co-ordinator, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden)Rachel Godsill (Soprano)Music may be a universal ‘language’ (of some sort), but as an art form it is certainly embedded in particular cultural and textual contexts. The distinctive challenges of ‘music-linked translation’ (Golomb 2005) have only recently started to receive focused scholarly attention. This is surprising since these challenges deeply inform our understanding of how translation adapts and transforms itself when constrained by non-linguistic structural forms (Gorlée 2005; Susam-Sarajeva 2008; Mateo 2012). The translation of texts that provide the basis for opera libretti, choral works, song texts, and the like, must necessarily accommodate the various non-verbal visual, musical, and emotional elements that are essential components of any given performance (Des