I Giardini dietro la Citta (2011)
(The Gardens Behind the City )

Dream, the 7th of January 2011:

I find myself on a place in an Italian village. In one of the corners of the square I discover a narrow passage. A woman dressed in black invites me by an almost imperceptible sign into the passage. Turning around a sharp corner I am standing in a cool, simple garden, where the ochreous walls make a splendid contrast to the green grass. Opposite to my position I spot a small gate. Through this gate I arrive at the second garden. I am struck by its beauty with its flowering trees which I know with the kind of certainty specific to dreams, are almond trees. Exuberantly ornamented walls encircle this garden. The next garden I reach is luxuriant in an almost threatening way with its dark green, exotic plants. On the three sides are high walls, but the fourth side leaves the sight of an open Italian countryside with remote mountains.

It was a dream of a peculiar intensity, and it seemed to contain a profound meaning. At the time of the dream I worked intensely to finish the present work, and I knew that the dream was about the piece – in an unexplainable way: it actually was the work - to which it then provided the title.

The work was composed for the French ensemble TM+ with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation.

Niels Rosing-Schow