Folkeraadet

Play by Gunnar Heiberg

2.2.2.2-4.2.3.1-timp.perc:BD/cym/SD-strings

Delius’s incidental music to the satiric drama Folkeraadet (variously translated as The Council of the People or Parliament) by Gunnar Heiberg (1857-1929) is entirely instrumental, and consists of the Prelude to Act 1, and Interludes between Acts 1 and 2, Acts 2 and 3, and Acts 4 and 5, as well as two short melodramas scored for strings alone, one occurring in Act 2, the other in Act 5. Delius’s love of Norway is well-known, and in this work he showed his interest in its politics too. The play’s characters include parliamentarians, a hotel bootcleaner who blows up a bridge to drown the enemy, and a poet who gambles everything on telling his nation the truth.

Dramatic, Poetic