This work continues my exploration of composition as simulacra, considering how sound can refract and reshape meaning. Love, Priests, Poets draws on a passage from Søren Kierkegaard’s Frygt og Bæven (Fear and Trembling, 1843), which reflects on the sorrow of separation between mother and child. It is a moment of tenderness and loss, where love and absence coexist.
"Så sørger de sammen den korte sorg. Held den, der beholdt barnet så nær og ikke behøvede at sørge mere!"
- Søren Kierkegaard, Frygt og Bæven (1843)
"Thus together they suffer this brief sorrow. Lucky the one who kept the child so close and had no need to sorrow more."
- Søren Kierkegaard: Frygt og Bæven, translated by Alastair Hannay in Fear and Trembling, published by Penguin Classics
The soprano gives voice to this fragment as it emerges and dissolves within the ensemble. The text is absorbed into the instrumental texture, reshaped through resonance and breath. Voice and instruments form a single sound world where language, tone and timbre continually blur.
In allowing the Danish and English to coexist, Love, Priests, Poets moves between understanding and abstraction, between what is spoken and what is only remembered.
Recording Notes
6 Mar 2026, Gigant Apeldoorn
Orkest De Ereprijs, Directed by Edo Frenkel Soprano Solo by Anna Luīze Razdovska
