Natalia Macfarren

Natalia Macfarren (née Clarina Thalia Andrae, 1827 – 1916) was a German-English contralto singer and music translator. She produced influential translations of Italian and German musical texts such as choral music and opera into English from the 1870s to the 1890s, sometimes introducing them to the English-speaking world for the first time. She is particularly noted for her translations of operatic works, especially those by Wagner.

Life She was born Clarina Thalia Andrae in Lübeck in 1827 to a German bandmaster who became attached to an English regiment after moving the family to England in the 1830s.

In September 1841, she entered the Royal Academy of Music as a pianist and contralto. She married one of her instructors, composer George Alexander Macfarren, on 27 September 1844. They had a daughter. Her short performing career also included appearing as a soloist in the 1850–1 season of the Anacreontic Society.

She then turned her attention to teaching and translation. In 1868 she published an Elementary Course for Vocalizing and Pronouncing the English Language. One of her pupils was Gilbert and Sullivan performer Alice Barnett.

Translation

Natalia Macfarren began translating music for Novello and Company in 1869. She selected and adapted songs for Novello's catalogue of choral and instrumental music. When they began an operatic series in 1871, she was selected as their translator, sometimes also working as editor, for works in German and Italian. She was one of the first translators to introduce the works of Wagner to an English-speaking audience, including Lohengrin (1872) and Tannhäuser (1873). however, Max Bruch praised and continued to use her as a translator.

Although her translations sometimes contained archaisms or suffered from a lack of proofreading, and her translations of Brahms' Lieder proved influential on later English versions.

Operas translated

The Barber of Seville She also translated Dvořák's Czech Gypsy Songs (from the German).

Death She died in Bakewell on 9 April 1916.