HENRIK HELLSTENIUS

This work is dedicated to the memory of a friend who died much too early, and is inspired by the poem Schliesse mir die Augen beide by Theodor Storm, twice set to music by the composer Alban Berg. The piece unfolds in one long and two shorter arcs. The piano propels the music forward in insistent, repetitive rhythmic and harmonic patterns, while the song flows rather slowly and, at times, lifelessly. The text to the piece is a synthesis of the original German and an English translation. The words themselves have such power that even though the line of the text is continually broken by the weaving together of the German and the English, the basic Romantic character of the text is more than well understood. The collision between the static musical lines and the frenetic fluctuation between languages is meant to create an imaginary extension lasting fourteen minutes of what could have been a few short seconds of a mental state.