[Julie Steiner]

The polls for the popular vote are now closed. I still don't know whose entry is whose, so until Alex unmasks our masquerade (and possibly disqualifies some self-votes from people trying to further disguise themselves), the winners of the 2015 Translation Bake-off Main Event are:


Popular Vote:

First Place, with 19 votes:
Bake-off Dish E--"The Black Cat", French lyrics by Aristide Bruant

Second Place, with 10 votes:
Bake-off Dish B--"The Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavor", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht

Third Place, with 9 votes:
Bake-off Dish J--"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht


Judge's Picks:

First Place:
Bake-off Dish B--"The Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavor", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht

Second Place:
Bake-off Dish H--"Ode to Cassandra", French lyrics by Pierre Ronsard

Third Place:
Bake-off Dish J--"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht


Congratulations to the four prize-winners! (Each entry can win only one prize, even if it's in both the democratic and despotic top threes.)

Thanks to everyone who took the time to prepare an entry, and special thanks to all those who commented! Postponing the event by a month made things inconvenient or impossible for some people who otherwise might have participated more in the conversation. And the extra time demands (and technical difficulties) of the audio elements certainly didn't help matters. So the thoughts of those who were able to find the time to evaluate and discuss the entries were especially appreciated this year.

The Yodeler and I will hide behind the curtain until Alex outs us, along with the finalists.

[Susan McLean]

Congratulations to the winners! And many thanks to the DG and singer. It was an interesting, if fiendishly difficult challenge, and quite different from anything we have done before. It was a great delight to hear the singer's takes on the songs (I think I recognize her voice, so I have disqualified myself from guessing. I will wait for her to reveal herself). I eagerly await the revelation of the identities of the translators and DG.

Susan

[Julie Steiner]

The Yodeler here. I've made the performances downloadable, if anyone wants to keep theirs. (I used the most miserly version of SoundCloud, so I assume this material will disappear at some point. When it's gone, it's gone.)

Thanks for the kind words.

[Catherine Chandler]

Congratulations to all - winners, finalists and everyone who took up this challenge!

Many thanks to the TSDG and Yodeler, whoever they may be! The tremendous amount of time, talent and effort you dedicated to this bake-off deserves our admiration and gratitude.

I still don't know whose entry is whose, so until Alex unmasks our masquerade (and possibly disqualifies some self-votes from people trying to further disguise themselves)

And if anyone actually entered a self-vote - Honte à toi!

[Diane Arnson Svarlien]

Yodeler, you were fabulous! Thanks for your performances. And thanks to the DG for so much thoughtful work.

[Alex Pepple]

The time is now to de-classify the Top-Secret Yodeler and the Top-Secret Distinguished Guest for our Translation bake-off, plus reveal our the bake-off finalists. But first, a big thank you to our Top-Secret Yodeler for the skillful and inspired yodeling of translated lyrics. And equally a big thank you to our Top-Secret Distinguished Guest for the sillful and generous comments for the finalist translations. Without further ado, it's my pleasure to tally the popular vote count and bring you the popular winners, as presented by our TSDG--

TOP THREE WINNERS by popular vote of the 2015 Translation Bake-off are:

1. Bake-off Dish E--"The Black Cat", French lyrics by Aristide Bruant, translated by Kyle Norwood (19 votes)
2. Bake-off Dish B--"The Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavor", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien (10 votes)
3. Bake-off Dish J--"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht by Jan Schreiber (9 votes)

Congratulations to our WINNER Kyle Norwood! And Congratulations to our second- and third-place translators, Diane Arnson Svarlien and Jan Schreiber respectively.

And the Judge's Picks are:

1. Bake-off Dish B--"The Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavor", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien
2. Bake-off Dish H--"Ode to Cassandra", French lyrics by Pierre Ronsard by Catherine Chandler
3. Bake-off Dish J--"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency", German lyrics by Bertolt Brecht by Jan Schreiber


Next, here are the remaining finalists in the order they were posted:

Bake-off Dish A--"I Am a Man" by Mary McLean
Bake-off Dish C--"[...]Long-gone Ladies" by Ann Drysdale
Bake-off Dish D--(2 songs with "Alas, alas!") by Susan McLean
Bake-off Dish F--"Oh, Ola, Ola..." by Marion Shore
Bake-off Dish G--"Ne Me Quitte Pas" by Skip Dewahl
Bake-off Dish I--"Sister Dear" by Marion Shore
Bake-off Dish K--"Belle de Nuit" by Brian Allgar

Congratulations and thank you to all! Thanks also go to all the participants!


Finally, who is our Top-Secret Yodeler, who is our Top Secret DG? Check the TSDG's posts, where the username should be, by now, decoded and declassified ... yes, it was quite a feat of a one-person dual role-play!

Cheers,
...Alex

[Susan McLean]

The one guess I did make, and I got it wrong! I thought I recognized Maryann Corbett's voice as the singer. But my own experience is that I usually guess wrong, and that proved true again. You have a lovely voice, Julie.

Susan

[Kyle Norwood]

I was wondering what Brian Allgar meant by saying that the identity-guessing thread had two mistakes and one misapprehension--what could the distinction be? I guess the misapprehension was that the TSDG and the yodeler were different people! Julie, thanks for your amazing singing and careful analysis of all the entries. You've made this bake-off a great deal of fun! And thanks to all who liked Bruant and my version of him--I was very surprised to win.

[Brian Allgar]

I thought that the TSDG might be Julie, since the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of the comments put me in mind of the last Translation Bake-off that she judged, but it never occurred to me that she was also the Yodeller. Indeed, the whole event was cunningly set up to make us believe otherwise, even to the point of the TSDG remarking: “I share the Yodeller's opinion that the original performance sounds gorgeous, and will add …” and "The Top Secret Yodeller may not have liked all the enjambment in the third stanza, including the "insane, or" / "Maine, or" rhyme, but I did." Ha! There's duplicity for you! I’m still scrabbling to remove the wool from my eyes.

Anyway, enormous thanks to Julie – both of her!

Later today, I hope to reply in detail to some of the points made about my own submission on the “Belle de Nuit” thread.

In the meantime, I thought you might like to know that the singer of the French version was my lovely wife, Françoise Allgar. I obviously couldn’t name her without blowing my own anonymity!

Kyle, my remarks on the voting thread were for Martin. He made two wrong guesses about which entry was mine, and his misapprehension was in supposing that the translator and the singer were the same person.

[Mary McLean]

Enormous thanks to Julie for her efforts -- I did suspect she was the TSDG since she commented so little on the threads, but the double effort of singing all those entries was phenomenal. I also had an inkling that Susan might have done the Moliere since I know what a fan she is, but I was far from sure. All of my other guesses were very far from the mark, so I'm glad I kept them to myself. Congratulations to all the winners!