• Esa-Pekka Salonen
  • Two Songs from Kalender Röd (2000)
    (Two Songs from Kalender Rod)

  • Chester Music Ltd (World)

Commissioned by the Swedish Broadcasting Cooperation for the 75th Anniversary Concert of the Swedish Radio Choir

Dedicated to the Swedish Radio Choir

  • SATB
  • 12 min

Programme Note

I became enchanted with Ann Jäderlund’s poetry because of its sensual intensity and lack of sentimentality. She describes sensations with amazing effectiveness, with few words but with a rhythm that immediately awakens musical associations.
In the first song, ‘Kyss min mun’ (Kiss my mouth), I tried to give musical shape to verbal images such as "touch me”, "glide”, and adjectives such as "slippery”, "round” and "loose”. In ‘Djupt I rummet’ (Deep in the room), the text is presented as a whole in a Palestrina-like simple counterpoint section at the beginning. The poem is then broken down into phonemes used as material for a musical game that becomes increasingly like a virtuoso piece until its culmination. A simple chorale featuring the poem again over slow harmonic waves concludes the work.
The songs are of course dedicated to the Swedish Radio Choir.

© Esa-Pekka Salonen, 2000

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