Ensemble Allegria

Asheim: Hogsongen / Tchaikovsky: Serenade Ensemble Allegria

Norwegian contemporary somposer and organist Nils Henrik Asheim. Narrator and famous Norwegian Actress Petronella Barker. Song of Solomon, the Song of Songs.

Høgsongen - Eg søv, men hjartet vaker (The Song of Songs - I slept, but my heart was awake)

Some several thousand years ago a text came into being, pieced together from a number of sources. Some were in use as nuptial poetry, some were known through oral tradition, and some of the text was composed. There are those who say it originated with King Solomon; others simply call it the "Song of Songs". No matter what, it is a magnificent celebration of love and eroticism. As a book of the Bible, it is written in a surprisingly direct first-person voice. Both he and she speak in turns, but it is the woman who leads, and it is from here we have picked the excerpts to be used in this work. Different passages, different stages of desire and attraction.

Serenade

Upon completing his Serenade for Strings in the rapid movement of a few weeks, Tchaikovsky wrote in a letter: "The Serenade was composed from an innate impulse; that is, something which rises from having freedom to think and is not devoid of true worth." Being on holiday had made him feel unwell and restless -- but he found happiness again in writing this piece. Unusually happy music for a typically tragic composer. Perhaps the monumental statement represented by the opening bars and repeated at the end is indeed a kind of invocation, a framing of happiness and the idyll, as long as it lasts.