Aquarelles, Op. 75: II. Langsomt Og Vemodig

One may wonder what connection there is between a crying, green anchovy and my music? There is none. However, my father was very much taken by surrealistic writings and often blurted out sentences that made no sense to us at all. He thought it was much fun. Aesop’s Fables are not fun, and far from surrealistic. The writing is very much apropos today; teaching us how to live together. So, could it be, that the surrealistic image of a green fish is a reflection of our own failure to learn the moral teachings of Aesop’s Fables?

Aesop was a slave and a storyteller presumably living in ancient Greece some 2500 years ago. His work, The Aesopica is a collection of fables designed to teach morality, and over many centuries they have been retold and perhaps changed a bit. I rewrote the fable about the Hare and the Tortoise to fit an earlier composition. The other fables see their origin in William Caxton’s Aesop’s Fables published in 1484. I have selected four of the fables to be inserted between the movements of my Bagateller for piano, a work written for and about children.

More recent publications of the fables have been richly adorned with works of art. No green anchovies, but drawings in black and white as well as color. The “Eagle and the Arrow” drawing was found in the 1884 publication Aesop's Fables, A New Revised Version From Original Sources illustrated by John Tenniel, Harrison Weir and Ernest Henry Griset.

Frequently used by speech-makers and teachers, the fables finally found use in books for children. As I see it, the fables are as current as they ever were, and we can all learn from the wisdom so well expressed.

Both my parents were musicians. My mother, Karen Henninge Lunde, tried to teach me piano. Aquarelles was written for her star pupil Marit Bakka.

When I told my friend Bruce Burnside about this CD he asked if I had read his poem Two Curious Pelicans. Inspired, I sat down and wrote the work that is now part of the CD. He too has a knack for teaching and possesses a profound knowledge of people. The expert reading by my friend Alan Ross is greatly appreciated.