World premiere: 2002, Würzburg, University of Music

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 any hidden layers, whose compositional techniques ‘chose themselves’ as a direct response to the poem by Marie-Luise Kaschnitz – primarily a diatonic approach beyond all technical artistry.


Marie Luise Kaschnitz
These three days

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

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

With a voice that
is not my own
Not this familiar
I spell out for you
A new alphabet

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

At my
I would like to have
Tedeum
Tedeum laudamus
The song of joy
Inappropriate—
Fittingly

For a deathbed
Is no longer a deathbed
nothing

A leap for joy
I want to take at the end
Down, up
Light as the spirit of the
rose

Keep it in your ear
The surf
Some
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 qualify as a music teacher for grammar schools) and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (musicology, philosophy and German studies), he studied composition at the Würzburg State University of Music under Heinz Winbeck. Having taught at several higher education institutions, he has been a lecturer in music theory at the Vocational Academy of the Darmstadt Academy of Music since 2006 and, since 2010, a professor of music theory at the Bayreuth University of Protestant Church Music, which he has headed as Vice-Chancellor since 2019. Commissioned works include pieces for ‘young.euro.classic.’ (Berlin) and the Kassel Music Festival. Numerous radio productions and awards, including the 2006 Bavarian State Prize for the Promotion of Young Artists and the 2007 prize at the international competition for electronic composition in Bourges, France. In 2012, the ballet music ‘Ich flamme – Tänze im Sonnenwind’ was performed in several Chinese cities under the patronage of the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs as part of the ‘Germany in China’ cultural year, in collaboration with the Federal Youth Ballet. From 2012, musical adaptations of Richard Wagner’s music dramas for the Bayreuth Festival (‘Wagner for Children’).