• Bent Sørensen
  • Enchantress (2019)

  • Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)

5 intermezzi for orchestra

  • 2(2pic).2.2.2/4.2.2.0/2perc/str
  • 13 min

Programme Note

On the night between the 25th and 26th of June I finished Enchantress – five intermezzi for orchestra commissioned by BBC for BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. For the first time ever I accepted a commissioner’s wish for a specific subject, an inspiration: The piece should refer to something Scottish, and it does. The title came from the beautiful poem Enchantress Farewell” by the Scottish writer, Walter Scott. The ”Farewell” disappeared, for now it is my music, and why say farewell to the enchanting, when the Enchantress’ enchanting is forever?
There is in the second and the fourth intermezzo some traces of Beethoven, who actually set the poem in music. Also – at the same time as I wrote Enchantress I planned to write a cadenza for Beethoven’s fourth Piano Concerto and that situation can be heard in the fourth intermezzo. That is – I know – not very Scottish, but Beethoven glides into an echo of my own Scottish jig. A jig which is in the second movement of the piece – a jig which is as Scottish as Scottish can be for a Dane.

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