Why I Stopped Singing for 40 years In voice class at Hunter College I had a boyfriend [not Jewish; that’s how we were in those days], and he deserted, discarded, and abandoned me. It’s an old story; many people out there go through this. The song I chose for my final exam, by the German composer Robert Schumann, goes with the lyrics of Heinrich Heine like this: Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht. ewig verlor'nes Lieb! Ich grolle nicht... And a loose translation: I bear no grudge, though my heart is breaking… I saw you, in my dreams, and saw the night in your heart and the snake… what a wretch you are! I bear no grudge. It was the perfect, angry, miserable song. He didn’t show up for my performance. But I kept him in mind all the time, as some people use a punching bag while thinking it’s their enemy’s head. You won’t hear me singing that song again; it scares me. He died after I sang it; I mean he got sick soon after and died in the hospital. Shocking, but these things happen out there. Only one recording on youtube plays the song the way I sang it [but I sang it better], with the pent-up agony, heartache, and rage I felt in those days, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwgbwKUjL3o If you don’t want to look at the woman playing piano in the background, turn off your computer screen. I know I’m supposed to tell you about Hoshana Raba and the recording I’m bli neder making the day after tomorrow. Let me have a good cry and punch some holes in the door, and b.n. I’ll tell you tomorrow, between rehearsals [don't worry; this time the song has not one drop of anger].
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