Wie ein Kind

for choir a cappella

By Erling Kullberg


    Composed 1979/80, commissioned by the Nordiska Körkomittén.
    Dedicated to Erling Kullberg
    First performance at the Nordklangstævnet Festival in Borgå, 1980, directed by Erling Kullberg.
    First performance in Denmark 19.01.1981 in Copenhagen with the Ars Nova Choir.
    Length: 14 minutes.


This work established itself at a very early stage as one of the most performed, classical works in Danish choral music.

    Wie ein Kind confronts two forms of poetical statement, one of which arose in a tortured, schizophrenic soul (Adolf Wölfli), whereas the other is the product of a highly respected poet (Rainer Maria Rilke)
    Per Nørgård's programme note    .


Wölfli

Wie ein Kind is the first work of Per Nørgård inspired by the schizophrenic Swiss artist, Adolf Wölfli. The work thus marks the beginning of that period in Nørgård's life in which he focused on division, contrast and catastrophe - read more about this in the section entitled Stylistic periods.




Yin and Yang


While the works of the 1970s mostly eulogise Harmony and The Cosmic Connection, the attention is now shifted from the holistic picture to close-ups of everyday life with its never-ceasing balance between idyll and catastrophe. This aspect of life is the theme of a whole series of works: the fact that happiness does not exist without the awareness of unhappiness, that idyll and catastrophe go hand in hand like sorrow and joy, yin and yang. See moreover the article on Idyll and catastrophe.

Wie ein Kind brings together two very different ways of expressing childlike sentiments or the world of childlike experiences.

The 1st movement is a cradle song to a text by Adolf Wölfli: written in a weird and very evocative nonsense language and suggestive of an ambiguous psychic ambience.

The 2nd movement, on the contrary, is a eulogy to the spring and its power to renew all things, composed to a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, from where the work borrows its title: ... 'die Erde ist wie ein Kind das Gedichte weiß'.

The 3rd movement returns to the atmosphere of the first movement, but the whole work reaches an impasse, not least as far as the poor soloist is concerned.