Dream Songs

for mixed choir and percussion

By Erling Kullberg

Composed 1981, commissioned by the Nordiska Körkomittén.

Dedicated to Erling Kullberg

First performance 1.5.1981 in St. Markus Church, Århus, the Jutland Academy of Music Choir, directed by Erling Kullberg

Length 13 min.

The associations evoked by the pictures and characteristic adjectives used in the poem are ambiguous, that is, they tread a narrow line between the positive and the negative - an ambiguity that was bound to fascinate Per Nørgård.

Nørgård went to Methling and asked him to write two more verses, each of which would project and conjure up a clearer version of the dream, that is, an idyllic version and a nightmare version respectively. The same ingredients are to be found in all versions, though the roles are different.

In the utopian version, the picture of the future which the boy sees is purely idyllic: he is sitting in a wonderful carriage and the man, who is himself, is kind and friendly and clothed in bright colours. The grazing horses create a scene of security and peace, and full of trust the child asks: 'Where are we going?'. In the nightmare version the pictures evoked are linked to terror and violence: the carriage destroys everything in its path, the man is armed, violent and covered with blood. Terrified, the child is forced to scream out to him: 'Where are you going?'. Between these two extremes there is the original poem with its  ambiguous visions.

Dream Songs (dedicated to Erling Kullberg) is in fact three versions of the same dream: the harmonious version, where everything is beautiful and there is no oppression; the ambiguous, which can be interpreted either way; and the nightmare version. The musical composition begins and ends with the harmonious, utopian version, but the part it plays in the story is different: the first time it appears it seems 'free and easy', 'flaccid', and opens the way to a reversal of fortunes, to nightmare and to conflict. In contrast to this, the second time it appears its harmony seems well-deserved - harmony regained. For a time.
(????)

3 dream scenarios

text: Finn Methling based on a Chinese model

Utopia

Night is over, little child
the storm is stilled, the East is red.
Awake and you will get to see a carriage:
golden, jade-green, pink and grey.
Leaning against the carriage is a man
in a coat sapphire-blue as the day.
The horses are grazing, the man asks if you will go with him and travel far.
Who is this person, little son?
He is yourself, and you ask him:
"Grown man, grown man, where are you going?"
Fear not, smile at him, little child!
Look straight at him, and ask:
"Grown man, grown man, where are we going?"



Ambiguity

The day is gone, little son
dream and you will get to see a carriage.
The carriage has wheels of scarlet
and a white mule draws it.
Inside the carriage sits a man
in silken hose with many-coloured threads.
He bears a cape of squirrel skin
over en waistcoat of white rabbit.
Lean against the shaft, little son!
Look into the carriage and ask him:
"Grown man, grown man, where are you going?"
Fear not, smile at him, little child!
Look straight at him, and ask:
"Grown man, grown man, where are we going?"



Nightmare

The sun is gone, little brother.
Sleep and you will get to see a chariot:
Knives bound to wheels of iron,
gruesome, it leaves sorrow and wailing it its wake.
High on the chariot stands a man:
Grim helmeted, with spear, bow and arrow,
he bears an oxhide cape over a bloody shirt of mail.
The horse rears, the whip cracks.
Do not run away! Scream at him, ask him:
"Grown man, grown man, where are you going?"

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