Poul Ruders

Fairytale for Orchestra

This short orchestral piece is a tone poem based on a passage from one of Hans Christian Andersen's lesser known fairytales, THE WIND TELLS ABOUT WALDEMAR DAAE AND HIS DAUGHTERS, a mighty allegory about the transitoriness of Life, about Vanity and Pride and the inevitable victory of Death (alias the wind), whose scything ravaging is sublimely depicted by Andersen in these few, truly breathtaking lines: 'And Winter rushed, Winter and Summer they rushed, and they rush, like I rush, like the howling snow, the flurrying apple blossom, the scurrying foliage; rush! rush! The people too!'