Puluseni

by Leevi Räsänen

for soprano and theorbo

Description

Written to the text Bist du bei mir from Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel's lost opera Diomedes

Baroque-fusion ensemble Detritus's ”Greatest hits” -song series combines two musical genres at the margin of the marginal genre: early Baroque and contemporary art music. The new works commissioned by them, together with their early Baroque counterparts, form a series that combines some of the most beloved songs of the past for soprano and theorbo continuo, and completely new songs, upcoming hits that use the same text.

My own addition to the series is called Puluseni, which is a gritty and nihilistic interpretation of the original text that I chose. You see, the text “Bist du bei mir” from Heinrich Gottfried Stölzel's lost opera Diomedes, is the ultimate declaration of love, a pathoxic ballad whose narrator gloats even death if only his loved one was the one to close their eyes.

Listening to such a story from todays perspective, that relationship might be deemed quite unhealthy. At its extremes, emotions are a double-edged sword and this is exactly what my interpretation of the story that preceded me more than 300 years is all about. Puluseni glides around the fading tree branches of the love-blinded human mind: in the distance, you can hear the cooing of the crow of infatuation, you see the linnet of love circling the hawfinch of hatred and above it all wanders the malevolent pigeon of obsession.

-Leevi Räsänen

Instrumentation

sopr, theorbo

Category

Vocal and Choral Works

Language

De

Commissioned by / Dedicated to

Dedicated to and commissioned by Detritus (Milla Mäkinen & Kaisamaija Uljas)

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Archive number

MF34322

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