Mayn Ershtn Tants Bay Dir waltz

Besides, if you want to pick on someone or cast blame it is Bregolas’s fault ~ for some explanation check over here:

“The Sweeper’s Tune” ~ note ‘tune’, not ‘waltz’, but he had to have it was a waltz and I stepped right in thinking I was doing my community duty hours… Anyway, he started me off, and then he had the gall ot ask me what kind of music I like, I mean, really? So, here it is, in full public view of everyone ~

I LIKE SHMALTZ!!! ~ I even sing this out loud in the car with all the windows rolled down and the Klezmatics (they call it “Ershter Tanz’, the first track of their lovely CD ”SHVAGYN=TOYT"… Yes! I love shmaltz…

Din gevebt elegants
Vi geshvebt in dem tants
Tsu mayn harts hostu zikh gedrikt
Mikh mit grester freyd baglikt.

Glik dergantst grandiez
Un du tantst gratsiez
Vi farkisheft drey ikh zikh
S’iz mekane yeder mikh.

Hey, I met and fell in love with my wife through the music and dance, though that was Irish to start with…

| c2 A2 B2 | ~ | c2 A B3 | ~ | c2 A3 B | ~ | c3 A B2 |

| F2 E4- | E2 B2 c2 | d6- | ~ | F4 E2 | B4 c2 | d6- | ~ | F3 E3- | E2 B3 c | d6- |
| F2 E4- | E2 A2 B2 | c6- | ~ | F4 E2 | A4 B2 | c6- | ~ | F3 E3- | E2 A3 B | c6- |

|: e2 c2 |
e6- | e2 e3 c | e6- | e2 f2 d2 | f6- | f2 f3 d | f6- | f2 d2 c2 |
B4 f2 | e4 ^d2 | e6- | e2 d2 c2 | B4 f2 | e4 ^G2 | A6- | A2 :|

So, what’s the Russian name for this one?

A Russian folk tune, the Yiddish lyrics by Chaim Towber Banner:

Mayn ershte groyse freyd,
Di krishtolene likht fun dem zal.
Dayn ershte lange kleyd,
Ongeton hostu tsum ershtn bal.
Eyn sheynkeyt yene nakht,
Vel ikh shoyn nisht fargesn keyn mol,
Ikh gedenkt dos haynt, host aroysgeshaynt,
In dem zal shendelir fun krishtol.

Mayn ershtn tants bay dir,
Hot farlangt yeder bokher in zal,
Nor du geshenkt host mir,
Ershtn tants, ershtn vals fun dem bal.
A shtoltser ful mit frey,
Hob ikh dikh unter orem gefirt,
In dayn vayse kleyd hostu likht gesphreyt
Vi a keynign bal host batsirt.

Din gevebt elegants,
Vi geshvebt in dem tants.
Tsu mayn harts hostu zikh gedrikt,
Mikh mit grester freyd baglikt.

Glik dergantst grandiez,
Un du tantst gratsiez.
Vi farkisheft drey ikh zikh,
S´iz mekane yeder mikh.

Mayn keynign fun bal,
Du aleyn bist geven yene nakht.
Dayn blik vi zunen-shtral,
S´ershte glik in mayn lebn gebrakht.
Oysleshn vet keyn mol,
Fun dayn oyg shendelir fun krishtol.
Brengst mir zunen-shayn, eybik vestu zayn,
Sheynste keynign fun ershte bal.

I’m hoping there’s someone out there better able to give the translation… That would be welcome, I love the sentiment behind the Yiddish…the ‘shmaltz’…

Here’s the Klezmatic’s translation for the first verse:

"My great joy
the crystal-light of the room.
Your first long dress you put on for the first ball.
A beautiful night that I will never forget.
I remember now how the chandelier lit up the room.

My first dance with you ~

Yeah, I know, me too, I’ve yet to dance in a ~ damn, I just remembered, I have danced in a ballroom with a big chandelier. Well, I never wore one of those monkey suits, not even for a wedding, and my wife is not fond of long dresses that drag along the floor either… Anyway, back to singing and waltzing… If anyone else wants to add the full translation, please do…

Din gevebt elegants
Vi geshvebt in dem tants ~

Oh, almost forgot, my current dress code ~ cut-off hole ridden and badly faded blue jeans, Jusus shoes and a badly faded Oxfam shirt that I think the moths have been chewing on. As far as hair syle, I ain’t goin’ there…

ROFL!!! =))
Aww, the tune seems to be very familiar, but no idea how’s it called here ) Ha, you’d better give Russian lyrics 🙂) so that I could translate - I can’t understand a word in Yiddish ;)
shmaltz… it sounds pretty funny in Russian ))
mwahaha, you still didn’t answer all the questions of my mail 😛

I’ll ask my friends, maybe they know the name ;) I’m not particularly good at native music, especially Classic, unfortunately )

I owe you an email Bregolas… But you’ve made me sad, all those different musics you’re interested in, including Irish, and you don’t dabble in a nice Russian Shar now and then? Hey, you’re getting into playing Russian traditional instruments of some sort or another aren’t you, the jaleyka for one. But I know, it is one hell of a huge country and there are a lot of different languages and cultures under that Yeltsin umbrella…

Links courtesy of Bregolas (Russia’s answer to the tin whistle? ~ or the uilleann pipes without the regulators, bag and bellow?):

http://rm.hoha.ru/img/rus_instr/jaleyka.jpg
http://kuznya.ru/instruments/jaleika-in.html

Bergolas, check your mail. I hope those answers will satisfy you for the moment, you do ask an awful lot of personal question for someone I’ve only just met. Is this a Russian thing? 😏 ~ 🙂

Oops! ~ sorry, confusing you with the local bergermeister, it should have read with the ‘r’ first = BREGOLAS…

Are you a Slavic elf or something, some relation to Legolas, elf of legoland? Do you have pointy ears too?

http://web.mit.edu/kayla/Public/Backgrounds/LOTR Legolas 1.JPG

Sorry, bad link ~ here’s one with some choice, and hopefully some laughs too:

http://www.theargonath.cc/
http://www.theargonath.cc/characters/legolas/pictures/legolasmiscpics.html

I just wish you’d comment on your tune submissions, ‘c’. Can’t you give us even just a tiny fragment of info about the tune? I mean, it’s a crying shame…

Sorry Dow, I get so easily distracted. But I was trying to get the Russian information from a Russian, but he only knows about Irish music. So, I have to look elsewhere, or hope that Bregolas has a friend who can add some more information. Oh yeah, you just reminded me, I have it in another key…

He doesn’t like accidentals, so no half holing or cross fingerings, so this one has been especially commissioned for slainte, alias Hiro, alias Hiroyuka, alias Yamadasan. And he likes things that fit nicely on a D whistle or his flute. I think I’ve cleaned out any odd bits other than rhythm, so this should do. I know Hiro, sorry, it isn’t called “My First Fling With You”, but tants is tanz is dance, so that will do eh? Remember our dancing together? Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you… 😉

K: b minor
|: F2 |
G4 F2 | B4 c2 | d6- | d2 B2 c2 | d2 B c3 | d2 e3 d | c6- | c4 F2 |
G F- F4- | F2 c3 d | e6- | e2 c2 d2 | e2 c d3 | e f3 g2 | f6- | f4 F2 |
G3 F3 | B3 c3 | d6- | d2 B2 c2 | d2 B2 d2 | e2 d2 e2 | f6- | f2 g f3 |
e3 d c2 | c2 f2 e2 | d2 c2 B2 | B2 e2 d2 | c2 d2 c2 | c d3 c2 | B6- | B4 :|
|: fd |
f6- | f2 f2 d2 | f6- | f2 g3 e | g6- | g2 g2 e2 | g6- | g2 c2 d2 |
e3 c d2 | e d3 e2 | f6 | f2 e2 d2 | c4 g2 | f c3 d2 | B6- | B4 :|

Unfortunately, my grandparents only spoke Yiddish when they didn’t want my mother and her siblings to understand, so the Yiddish-speaking in my family (in this branch, at least) ended with the death of my grandfather in 1967 (I wasn’t born for another 7 years). So I’m no more able to do a translation than anyone else with a D at ‘A’-level German.

I’d be intreagued if there were any fluent Yiddish speakers here. With 26,706 members, there’s got to be at least one. I heard a man speaking Yiddish on his mobile in th West End the other day. If you’d only posted this a few days earlier, Coelacanth, I’d have asked him for a translation - although, judging by his manner of dress, he might consider the subject material of this song too sexually explicit.

Incidentally, to clarify, my grandmother lived until 1982, but had nobody to speak Yiddish to, except for odd words like ‘meschugener’ and ‘pischer’.

…Beg your pardon, she died in 1984, aged 82.

Spoon ~ Cuilier ~ Llwy ~ Lefl ~ age catches up with us all…

Being of Irish and Jewish heritage, it is a pleasure to see both musical styles represented on this website! Though my grandparents spoke Yiddish, I cannot vouch my translation will be entirely accurate, but I’ll do my best:

Verse 1: already translated

Verse 2:
My first dance with you,
Every student in the hall longed for
but only to me were you sent
First dance, first waltz in the ball.
A proud man full of joy,
I led you in arm in arm
In your white dress you radiated light
like a little adorned ball.

You are dressed elegently
as you float through the dance
You have driven to my heart
and brought me the greatest enjoyment

Completely happy
and dancing ?
I turn you like a ?
and you are the envy of all

You alone have been
my little one of the ball.
Your gaze like sunrays
has brought me my first joy.
???
of your crystal chandelier
You bring me sunshine, you shall be eternal,
my little pretty one of the ball.

I hope somebody else can improve upon this effort! ~David McCarthy

Thanks David. I had a basic idea of what was there. I was trying to do a translation a word at a time, but I hadn’t found translations for at least a third of the words.

One of my regular joys in Dublin, way back when, was a Jewish bakery, I think it was over near the Quaker’s Meeting House just off the Liffy. Sadly it is no more, but they had the best damned bagels and was a regular visit… There was also a synagogue in Dublin… At one time there was a sizeable Jewish population in Eire, and there were the tales about them eating children too, the usual dosh. While the interest is there I have as yet to find a good source for raising my understanding of Judaism in Ireland… Recommended reads are welcome…

Moving relevant comment from the waltz “Metsäkukkia”, for comparison’s sake. For that same reason I’ve changed L: 1/4 to the more usual L: 1/8 as used for 3/4 tunes on site here. ~ c

The following was
# Posted on April 12th 2010 by Jürgen
https://thesession.org/tunes/4585/comments

Still another

2-parts variant pops up in a (superficially?) unlikely place - as the air to the song Ershter Vals on the Klezmatics’ first album. Just the bare bones, which can’t do justice to Lorin Sklamberg’s glorious rendition:

X: 3
T: Ershter Vals
M: 3/4
L: 1/8
R: waltz
K: Amin
|: E2 |\
F4 E2 | A4 B2 | c6- | c2 A2 B2 | c2 A2 B2 | c2 d2 c2 | B6- | B4 E2 |
F4 E2 | B4 c2 | d6- | d2 B2 c2 | d2 B2 c2 | d2 e2 f2 | e6- | e4 E2 |
F4 E2 | A4 B2 | c6- | c2 A2 B2 | c2 B2 c2 | d2 c2 d2 | e6- | e2 f2 e2 |
d2 c2 B2- | B2 e2 d2 | c2 B2 A2- | A2 d2 c2 | B2 c2 B2 | B2 A2 ^G2 | A6- |[1 A4 :|[2 A2 e2 c2 ||
|: e6- | e2 e2 c2 | e6- | e2 e2 e2 | f6- | f2 f2 d2 | f6- | f2 B2 c2 |
d4 d2 | d2 c2 d2 | e6- | e2 d2 c2 | B4 f2 | e4 ^G2 | A6- |[1 A2 e2 c2 :|[2 A4 |]

The liner notes call it “A familiar Russian tune known in the US as Expectation, Yiddishized by [Chaim Towber] Banner’s sentimental words.”

# Posted on April 12th 2010 by Jürgen

…
In your white dress you radiated light
like a ball queen you were crowned. (keynign = queen)
…

Completely happy
and dancing graciously
Like enchanted I turn myself
and I am the envy of all (zikh/mikh = reflexive pronoun)

You alone have been
my queen of the ball that night.
Your gaze like sunrays
has brought me my first joy.
Never will extinguish
from your eyes the [light of the] crystal chandelier
You bring me sunshine, you shall be eternal,
most beautiful queen of the first ball.

Bella Ciao? Any one else see the similarity?

@Brian Musak, that’s probably because the tune for Bella Ciao derives from a Yiddish/Russian tune, ’Koilen". It’s the Russian sound you’re hearing.
Here’s a link to a fine version by Cidnewski Kapelye.
https://youtu.be/BIn7E5_blZI

play video

I first came across the waltz , ‘Mayn Ershtn Tants Bay Dir’ as ‘Ozhidanie’ or ‘Ozhidanya’ (transliteration from Cyrilic) which translates as ‘Expectation’.