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- Peter Bruun
Miki Alone (2002)
- Edition Wilhelm Hansen Copenhagen (World)
- va, db, cl, perc
- mezzo soprano
- 55 min
- Ursula Andkjær Olsen
- Danish, German
Programme Note
Words set to music always involve a dilemma. If the music says something that the words don’t say, then what does the music have to do with the words? And conversely, if the music says no more than the words, what is the point of the music at all? Normally, we must suppose that in the best cases the words give the music some sort of meaning - we experience the music through the words and their meaning.
In Miki Alone the opposite is just as true. Seven songs for a mad woman - that is what Miki Alone is. The production has a unifying figure, Miki, the woman who sings, but there is no plot. The texts of the seven songs refer to one another and certain words and phrases recur repeatedly, but there is no logical progression. It is just as chaotic as our ordinary everyday thoughts: a flow of words and phrases often given shape by the sound of the words rather than their meaning. In this sense the texts for Miki Alone are in themselves a kind of music.
There are moods and statements that are familiar and meaningful, and which evoke a response, but which perhaps do not directly mean anything. And the music for Miki Alone is, one could say, "music set to music" - Peter Bruun’s music for Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s "word music". In the music the "word music" is given body.
My music for Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s texts is my attempt to say the words aloud. I believe that the texts are crying out to be spoken aloud. But when I do it - through the music - it involves choices: in the music I choose a tone and a "facial expression" with which the texts are spoken. In so doing perhaps I don’t do justice to the infinitely many possibilities of the text. However, I permit myself to do it, hoping that my way of speaking the words will evoke a response from others.
Peter Bruun.
In Miki Alone the opposite is just as true. Seven songs for a mad woman - that is what Miki Alone is. The production has a unifying figure, Miki, the woman who sings, but there is no plot. The texts of the seven songs refer to one another and certain words and phrases recur repeatedly, but there is no logical progression. It is just as chaotic as our ordinary everyday thoughts: a flow of words and phrases often given shape by the sound of the words rather than their meaning. In this sense the texts for Miki Alone are in themselves a kind of music.
There are moods and statements that are familiar and meaningful, and which evoke a response, but which perhaps do not directly mean anything. And the music for Miki Alone is, one could say, "music set to music" - Peter Bruun’s music for Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s "word music". In the music the "word music" is given body.
My music for Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s texts is my attempt to say the words aloud. I believe that the texts are crying out to be spoken aloud. But when I do it - through the music - it involves choices: in the music I choose a tone and a "facial expression" with which the texts are spoken. In so doing perhaps I don’t do justice to the infinitely many possibilities of the text. However, I permit myself to do it, hoping that my way of speaking the words will evoke a response from others.
Peter Bruun.