Poems

Item details

• Description +

  • Duration: 14 min.
    
    Music: Daniel Berg     
    Text: Emily Dickinson
    
    When American poet Emily Dickinson died in 1886, only a few of her poems were published. She had sent her poems to a local critic, who tried to dissuade her from publishing and considered that her poetry was too dirty and odd, and therefore only a handful of her poems were published during her lifetime. After Emily's death, her sister was responsible for the publication of the 1700 poems and has since been praised by people all over the world. Dickinson was a very original poet, glorified and like to talk in the same breath. She wrote about conventional poetic subjects such as nature, love, death and God.
    
    The combination of the sound from a vibraphone, together with a soprano, fits so well together. When Taiwanese-American percussionist Yun Ju Pan asked me for a piece for soprano with percussion, I suggested the vibraphone. To get as much contrast as possible in the composition, I chosen texts by Emily Dickinson with very different character for the four first movements. The fifth one is written more like a jazz ballad and some sort of reflection of the poems by Dickinson - a final poem without words.

• Instrumentation +

  • Vibraphone and Soprano

• About the composer +

  • Daniel Berg is a versatile marimba soloist, composer and educator. He holds the position as the percussion and chamber music teacher at the University Colleges of Music in Stockholm, Örebro and Gothenburg (Sweden).    
    
    In his passion to promote the marimba as a solo- and chamber music instrument, Daniel has worked intimately with a number of composers who have written original music for the instrument. This includes more than 250 world premieres for solo and chamber works. Daniel Berg is an artist of Bergerault Marimbas and Elite Mallets.  
    
    As a composer Daniel has written a lot for percussion published by Edition Svitzer. Solo pieces for marimba like Helios, Phoenix and Twilight Garden and the series of Easy Duets and Easy Solos who become a best seller for young percussion players round the world.

• Credits +

  • Art work (Photo): Bengt Berglund
    Front Cover: Ronni Kot Wenzell
    Photo (Daniel Berg): Jon Liinason
    Engraving: CPH Engraving
    Printed in Copenhagen, Denmark
    Copyright © Edition SVITZER
    www.editionsvitzer.com

Related publications

Life of the Dead

Three Poems