Now Gunnar dreams; let him enjoy his dream in peace.

Saga-Drøm (Dreams of Saga) by Carl Nielsen

Nielsen describes his composition in a 1927 interview in the newspaper Politiken. “I am so fond of the work. It is kept almost piano all the time and musically it is very radical. It depicts the dream of Gunnar of Hlidarende, the marvelous figure from Njal’s Saga who plundered and slaughtered, yet was still made of finer stuff and was ahead of his time. He dreams of a brighter, better future for mankind, and I have tried, in muted tones, to give voice to the strange ideas engendered in the dream.”

A cadenza is a common feature in classical music, where the orchestra pauses for a solo instrument. These moments are often a linchpin of the piece, where a single player channels the music from one place to another. In Saga-Drøm, Nielsen introduces “four cadenzas for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and flute which run quite freely alongside one another, with no harmonic connection, and without my marking time. They are just like four streams of thought, each going its own way – differently and randomly for each performance – until they meet in a point of rest, as if flowing into a lock where they are united.”

This wonderful moment flows into a fabulous chorale in the lower brass and winds, taking the piece to a noble ending.

Join us to hear this, along with Nielsen's terrific flute concerto and Mahler's "Titan", Symphony No. 1. Sunday, May 11 at 2pm at MassBay in Wellesley.

Tickets are 'pay what you can' - click here.

sources:

wikipedia

repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/wp-content/uploads/vorworte_prefaces/1297.pdf