Three Obscene Songs

– Blumenstück (Flower Piece)
– Postmoderne Stielblüte (Postmodern Howler)
– Printemps Parisien

2000

Soprano and piano

UA: 27/8/2000, “Flora Concerts 2000” Hortus Botanicus – Old Orangerie (Rapenburg, Leiden, The Netherlands), Djoke Winkler Prins, voice; Jan Spreij, piano

CD: BS0-086 (www.bloomline.nl)

These three songs have been composed for a concert to be organised end of August 2000 in the Botanical Gardens in Leiden (The Netherlands).

The purpose has been to compose songs about the wonderful trees, flowers and grasses of the Japanese department of that Hortus. This idea seemed too decent to me. I decided to compose three quite disgusting flower pieces.

The first one is based on the ironical “Du bist wie eine Blume” by Schumann/Heine, the second one deals with the most obscene items of our times: Lyotards “postmodernity”. It is dedicated to the eternal memory of his ashes. The third song deals with a child, having discovered a condom behind a bush in that botanical garden and how its mother explains, what this little piece of rubber is all about.

I invented texts and compositions in two afternoons in May 2000. The texts are – obviously – extremely (in)decent.

You can download the score here: ThreeObsceneSongs.pdf