Swallow (in the first verse) =someone who wasn’t destined to persecution. Like the swallow must learn to fly (One who has wings flies high and never becomes a slave.) Like the swallow so proud and free?” (” You couldn’t be a bird, you couldn’t be a swallow”)Ĭalves are easily bound and slaughtered (Men bind and slaughtered poor calves.)
“Stop complaining,” said the farmer, (The calf cried and the farmer said, ” ….”)
So I think that’s why the translators wrote “summer”.) (The winds are blowing through the grain. (The original means the swallow is pleased, turn in around.)Īnd half the summer’s night. (I think it’s related to the Judean sacrifice.) This is the English translated text with some annotations explaining the difference between the translated text and the original.). She didn’t notice the spelling changes and sang with different pronunciations. The song became very popular, after Joan Baez sang it with her guitar. By the translation, Schwarz changed “Dana” to “Dona” and “Dan” to “Don” or “Down” so it would be pronounced more like the original. The very popular English translation of “Dana Dana”, which is now “Dona Dona” was translated by Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz ca.1956. I used “ha ha ha “with some conjunct motions. As I prepared the song I was not aware of his original piece. I was surprised, because I used “ha ha ha “too, when I arranged the song for a Duo and Piano for my musical research. There are some difference between the original and the melody that are well known.) Secunda wrote “ha ha ha ” for the choral score with the broken chords. Secunda wrote “molto rit.” (gradually very slowly) for the ending of the first verse. Then “he” sings the melody, and “she” sometimes sings “Dana”, other times sings “Ah” with a high voice or technical passage. Although singing the third part of “Dana Dana” (=”Dana Dana Dana Dana….”) the man sometimes sings lower than the melody using disjunct motions. He wrote “più mosso” ( more rapidly) for the refrain and some passages that emphasize the winds.įirst, a woman (Secunda wrote “she”) sings four bars and then the man (Secunda wrote “he”) sings the next four. The melody of the introduction was also used at the end of the song. He wrote for the choral score “Andantino” ( some slowly) and “sempre staccato” (Play staccato always! staccato=separate clearly each of the notes ). You can see the Hebrew text with “Esterke” that I have already written. The Yiddish text was written with roman alphabet. Secunda wrote “Dana- ” for the orchestral score and “Dana Dana” for the vocal scores. The original is 2/4, in G minor for a duo of a man and a woman, choral with the orchestral accompaniment. Therefore I believe that all of the scores were written by Shalom Secunda. Secunda wrote two types of “D”, an English style and a German style. The style of clefs, beams of notes and the handwriting are similar in all the scores, although there are little differences in the stems of some notes. You can see the notes, manuscript and scores with “Esterke”.
He worked at a Jewish theater from 1937 to the beginning of the 1940s. The composer, Shalom Secunda (or Sholom Secunda) 1894-1974, was born in Ukraine and was educated in America. The author, Aaron Zeitlin (or Ahron Tzeitlin) 1889-1973, was born in Russia and lived in Poland. Both of them are Jewish and the song was written in the time of the Nazis. The text was written by Aaron Zeitlin (1889-1973), and the music was written by Sholom Secunda (1894-1974). The original Yiddish song was for the theater piece “Esterke” (1940/41). It’s sung in some countries and has been sung in many Japanese schools for a long time. “Dana Dana” is a very popular American song, that is well known in English as “Dona Dona”.