Can some kind German speaker tell me what: "Mit zartem Vortrage" means?
(This is at the beginning of Clara Schumann's 2nd Romance).

And am I correct in thinking that: "Leidenschaftlich schnell" means "fast and with passion"?
(At the beginning of the 3rd Romance).

Thanks

Where is Anacrusis ?

Literally "With a soft lecture" so says my translation programme...

Google translator says Mit zartem Vortrage means "with a delicate lecture".... (Though how exactly that translates into musical interpretation.... )

and the latter passionately quickly so I guess you are right

Google translator is here

Vortrage can also mean presentation or performance.

Zart is tender or gentle.

The Germans have a habit of saying "with a" rather tha "ly".

So I'd just say tenderly.

And yes Leidenschaftlich is passionately or fervently.

Thanks for the ideas but I had more or less got that far myself:


I thought "vortrag" was lecture and that "vortrage" came from the verb "vortragen" meaning "to carry forward" (or so my daughter's German dictionary says).

And I knew that the "mit" would most likely be an adverb in "ly"

What I really would like is a German speaker to turn all this into an understandable instruction

EDITTED.
Literally -
With a tender performance.
Passionately. Fast.

If I was actually writing these as directions on a score in English I would simply write -
Tenderly.
Passionate. Fast.

Those are not from Google Translate.

I am a German native, and I'd translate "mit zartem Vortrage" (which is quite old-fashioned German) with "with gentle/delicate/soft/tender performance/play". So really, you have to play it softly/tenderly.

"Leidenschaftlich schnell" literally means "passionately fast".

P.S.: A "Vortrag" is a presentation/performance, and "Vortrage" is just 19th century German. Today, we would leave the "e" out. Same applies to the mit/with a: It is not today's Germans who have a habit of saying it

Thanks Dugazon.
This makes sense and would mean that I should be trying to play the 2nd Romance as a tender/calm moment between the more stormy/passionate 1st and 3rd Romances (instead of trying to make it sound like the other two).

And thanks also for enlightening me about the German spelling. My daughter is learning German at school but has an awful teacher (and there is only one in the school so she is stuck with her for four years). I spend a lot of time trying to help my daughter make sense of her lessons and in particular teaching her to identify the subject, verb, and object since most of their tests are badly designed comprehension tests in which it is quite possible to get almost full marks without understanding anything as long as you have learnt the interrogative pronouns and can find the subject, verb and object.

I got there too late - but yes, would also have said that it implies presenting the music delicately...