Michael Nyman: Six Celan Songs For Low Female Voice And Piano: Altsaxophon mit Begleitung

This cycle of settings of poems by Paul Celan was written between May and July 1990 for Ute Lemper. The texts are taken from the following collections: 'Chanson einer Dame im Schatten' and 'Corona' from Mohn undGedachtnis(1952),'Nachtlich geschurzt' from Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (1955), 'Blume' from Sprachgitter (1959), and 'Es war Erde in ihnen' and 'Psalm' from Die Niemandsrose of 1963.

The settings of 'Corona' and 'Blume' bothintroduce an eight-barchord sequence derived from Chopin's Mazurka in A minor, Op.17 No.4 (the introduction to which was used by Gorecki in his Symphony No.3).

Piano and voice version written in 1997 at the request of HilarySummers.