World premiere: 2002, Würzburg, University of Music

Duration:

Publisher: -


My song ‘Diese drei Tage’ was written in 2002 for a memorial concert in honour of the Würzburg composer and composition teacher Bertold Hummel (1925–2002). I composed music without a hidden meaning, whose compositional means ‘chose themselves’ in direct response to the poem by Marie-Luise Kaschnitz – primarily a diatonicism beyond all artistry.


Marie Luise Kaschnitz

These three days

These three days
From death to the grave
How free I shall be
Here and there
Wander
To the old places of
joy

To you too
Yes, to you too
Take note
When the curtains
flutter
Without a gust of wind
When the traffic noise
fades away
In the middle of the day
Listen

With a voice that
is not mine
Not this familiar
I spell out to you
A new alphabet

In the reflective
panes
I let you
appear
Puzzles
Old riddles
Where is the captain?
Where are the dead?
This question
We pondered for a long time

For my
I wish for the
Tedeum
Tedeum laudamus
The song of joy
Inappropriate-
Appropriately

For a deathbed
Is no longer a deathbed
nothing

A leap of joy
I want to take at the end
Downwards, upwards
Light as the spirit of the
rose

Keep in your ear
The surf
Any
Mediterranean
The rocky shores
Jubilant and
thundering
Down
Up.


Marko Zdralek was born in 1973 in Griesbach i. Rottal. After studying at the Munich University of Music (to become a secondary school music teacher) and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (musicology, philosophy and German studies), he studied composition at the State University of Music in Würzburg under Heinz Winbeck. After teaching at several universities, he has been a lecturer in music theory at the Professional Academy of the Academy of Music in Darmstadt since 2006 and a professor of music theory at the University of Protestant Church Music in Bayreuth since 2010, which he has headed as Vice-Rector since 2019. Commissioned works include pieces for ‘young.euro.classic.’ (Berlin) and the Kassel Music Festival. Numerous radio productions and awards, e.g. 2006 Bavarian State Prize for the Promotion of Young Artists, 2007 prize in the international competition for electronic composition, Bourges, France. In 2012, performance of the ballet music “Ich flamme – Tänze im Sonnenwind” in several Chinese cities under the patronage of the Federal Foreign Minister as part of the cultural year “Germany in China” in collaboration with the Federal Youth Ballet. Since 2012, musical adaptations of Richard Wagner’s music dramas for the Bayreuth Festival (Wagner for Children).