Patti Smith Reads Federico Garcia Lorca’s “Little Viennese Waltz” in New York City

Last Wednes­day night, New York Insti­tu­tion Pat­ti Smith appeared at down­town venue Bow­ery Ball­room with a few friends to read poet­ry and play some music. The occa­sion? One of many in an almost two-month-long cel­e­bra­tion of Span­ish poet and play­wright Fed­eri­co Gar­cia Lorca’s brief sojourn in New York City in 1929–1930 while he was a stu­dent at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. That year inspired a book, Poet in New York, which has been repub­lished in a revised bilin­gual edi­tion by Far­rar, Straus & Giroux.

In the clip above, watch Smith read a selec­tion of Gar­cia Lorca’s “Lit­tle Vien­nese Waltz.” Her Jersey/New York inflec­tions make the lines her own (love the way she says “piano”), and her ban­ter with the audi­ence is price­less.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via The New York Times

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pat­ti Smith Shares William S. Bur­roughs’ Advice for Writ­ers and Artists

Watch Pat­ti Smith Read from Vir­ginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Sur­viv­ing Record­ing of Woolf’s Voice

Pat­ti Smith’s Cov­er of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Strips the Song Down to its Heart

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness