Songs My Mother Taught Me (Czech: Když mne stará matka zpívat, German: Als die alte Mutter sang), is a song by Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

 which forms part of his Gypsy Songs cycle (Cigánské melodie, B. 104/4, Op. 55/4), written for voice and piano in 1880. The Gypsy Songs are set to poems by Adolf Heyduk

Adolf Heyduk

Adolf Heyduk was a distinguished Czech poet and writer. Many of his poems were later adapted by Antonín Dvořák.-Life:...

 in both Czech

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

 and German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

. This song, in particular, has achieved widespread fame.

The song has been recorded by a number of well-known singers, including Edita Gruberova

Edita Gruberová

Edita Gruberová , is a Slovak soprano who is one of the most acclaimed coloraturas of recent decades. She is noted for her great tonal clarity, agility, dramatic interpretation, and ability to sing high notes with great power, which made her an ideal Queen of the Night in her early years...

, Magdalena Kožená

Magdalena Kožená

Magdalena Kožená is a Czech mezzo-soprano.In 2003, Kožená was awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government...

, Nellie Melba

Nellie Melba

Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...

, Rosa Ponselle

Rosa Ponselle

Rosa Ponselle , was an American operatic soprano with a large, opulent voice. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered by music critics to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the past 100 years.-Early life:She was born Rosa Ponzillo on January 22, 1897,...

, Jeanette MacDonald

Jeanette MacDonald

Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...

, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...

, Victoria de los Angeles

Victoria de los Ángeles

Victoria de los Ángeles was a Spanish Catalan operatic soprano and recitalist whose career began in the early 1940s and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Her obituary in The Times noted that she must be counted “among the finest singers of the second half...

, Joan Sutherland

Joan Sutherland

Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....

, Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

, Angela Gheorghiu

Angela Gheorghiu

Angela Gheorghiu is a Romanian soprano opera singer. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has sung as soprano leading roles at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States...

, Frederica von Stade

Frederica von Stade

Frederica von Stade is an American mezzo-soprano. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, she acquired the nickname "Flicka" in her childhood. Von Stade attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1970 and in 1971 appeared as Cherubino in The...

 and Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming

Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...

.

The song is also featured on the album Charlotte Church

Charlotte Church (album)

Charlotte Church is the self-titled second album, released in 1999, featuring the voice of the then 13-year-old soprano Charlotte Church.-Track listing:#"Just Wave Hello"#"La Pastorella"#"Barcarolle"#"O mio babbino caro"#"Lascia ch'io pianga"...

.

Artists who have recorded instrumental versions of the song include Glenn Miller

Glenn Miller

Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...

, Fritz Kreisler

Fritz Kreisler

Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...

, Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...

 and Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

.

The title Songs My Mother Taught Me has frequently been used by singers in recitals or on recital discs, even when the song itself is not included in the recording.

Fritz Kreisler transcribed the song for violin and piano and performed it frequently. His transcription was first published in 1914.

Lyrics

Czech text

Když mne stará matka zpívat, zpívat učívala,

podivno, že často, často slzívala.

A ted' také pláčem snědé líce mučím,

když cigánské děti hrát a zpívat učím!
German text by Adolf Heyduk

Adolf Heyduk

Adolf Heyduk was a distinguished Czech poet and writer. Many of his poems were later adapted by Antonín Dvořák.-Life:...

Als die alte Mutter mich noch lehrte singen,

tränen in den Wimpern gar so oft ihr hingen.

Jetzt, wo ich die Kleinen selber üb im Sange,

rieselt's in den Bart oft,

rieselt's oft von der braunen Wange.
English Translation

Songs my mother taught me,

In the days long vanished;

Seldom from her eyelids

Were the teardrops banished.
Now I teach my children,

Each melodious measure.

Oft the tears are flowing,

Oft they flow from my memory's treasure.