Poul Ruders Edgar Allan Poe: The City In The Sea: Countertenor: Score

Dreamland (2010) for Soprano Clarinet and String Quartet.Text by Edgar Allan Poe 1844. Parts: WH31171APreface / Programme Note When looking for an interpretation on the internet of Edgar Allan Poe´s DREAMLAND it turns out that there are as many interpretations as there are interpreters. Some believe it is the mad hallucinations of a drug addict (could be Poe himself) others see it as Poe´s equivalent of Dante´s INFERNO – a tale from the Underworld.One thing is certain though. DREAMLAND is a ”fantasy” the vision of a dreamvoyager arriving at andstaying in a mythical location beyond and between space and time a place of strange majesty and surreal spectacles such as: “Mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore”. At the same time it is a “peaceful soothing region” – a mystical ”wonderland” not unlike the fabled Eldorado whichis mentioned in the poem.Poe biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn called it “one of Poe´s finest creations” with each phrase contributing to one effect: a human traveler wandering betweenlife and death.DREAMLAND first appeared in print in America in the June 1844 issue of Graham´s Magazine and was subsequently published in a June 1845 edition of The Broadway Journal. Poul Ruders July 2010

Piano reduction for Poul Ruders' The City In The Sea (1990) - for Contralto and Orchestra. Words by Edgar Allen Poe. Full score: KP01579

REVEILLE RETRAITE for solo trumpetA joint commission between Håkan Hardenberger and Danmarks RadioDedicated to Håkan HardenbergerProgramme note:Everybody knows or has at least heard of the time honoured military bugle calls: Reveille Retraite the awakening at sunrise the turning in at sunset. In a way it's the UR concept of the nature of the trumpet an instrument capable of glorious panache as well as sublime inward looking finesse. My piece is as indicated in the title a two fold composition in the form of two contrasting tone poems each mirroring a fragment of original text what one could call spiritual appetizers. At the end of chapter 8 of his high spiritedMemoirs Hector Berlioz laments the murder of a man he admired Prince Lichnowsky who was stabbed to death in Frankfurt in September 1848 by German peasants: 'Oh I must get out walk run shout under the open sky! ' Now there's a juicy bit of high strung romantic Sturm und Drang for you and the perfect motto for any awakening... Then night fall Retraite in which I've drawn upon the early melancholy poem ALONE by Edgar Allan Poe and taken out one single line as 'subtitle' for this very hushed and withdrawn movement: 'And all I lov’d I lov’d alone. ' I guess it won't hurt to quote the poem in its entirety:'From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were I have not seenAs others saw I could not bringMy passions from a common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow; I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone;And all1 lov’d I lov’d alone.THEN in my childhood in the dawnOf a most stormy life was drawnFrom ev’ry depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent or the fountain From the red cliff of the mountain From the sun that 'round me roll`dIn its autumn tint of gold From the lightning in the skyAs it pass’d me flying by From the thunder and the storm And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Beaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.'Edgar Allan PoeProgramme note by Poul Ruders