Andersen was recognized by his contemporaries as an author of adult fiction, with an adult sensibility inherent in his fairy tales and stories. Today he is known the world over for his fairy tales, which are particularly popular in China and Japan, but few readers outside of Europe know his other works. In Russia, readers were familiar with his tales and one of his novels.
Some of his poems and plays were also translated into German and English. I think I tried to transform the purity of the girls’ choir’s voices into the orchestral sound.During his lifetime, Hans Christian Andersen was well known in both Europe and the United States for his novels, fairy tales, and stories, as well as for his literary travel books and autobiography. All the way through the music is soft - even the storm is soft and gentle in the music - trying to find a translation in music of the childlike nature of the fairytale. And the music itself is very much inspired by the headlines: Tempest/Storm, Silence and Party. The music - together with the text - forms a kind of semi-dramatic piece. So in a way the piece points towards the death of both Andersen and the little mermaid.
While the female voices are telling/playing out the little mermaid’s story, a tenor sings quotations from the diary of Hans Christian Andersen, ending with the very last words he wrote in his diary. The text is based on the fairytale The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen and Peter Asmussen only uses Andersen’s words shortened to form a kind of poem telling the story in three movements: The Tempest, The Silence and The Party.Ī lot of the words are put into the mouth of the soprano soloist, while other parts of the Mermaid-text are sung by the girls’ choir, who on one hand tell the story and on the other hand play the roles of the little mermaid’s sisters. The Little Mermaid text is written by the Danish playwright Peter Asmussen, who also wrote the libretto for my opera Under the Sky (2004).
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