Puluseni by Leevi Räsänen

Baroque-fusion ensemble Detritus's ”Greatest hits” -song series combines two musical genres at the margin of the marginal genre: early Baroque and contemporary art music. The new works commissioned by them, together with their early Baroque counterparts, form a series that combines some of the most beloved songs of the past for soprano and theorbo continuo, and completely new songs, upcoming hits that use the same text.

My own addition to the series is called Puluseni, which is a gritty and nihilistic interpretation of the original text that I chose. You see, the text “Bist du bei mir” from Heinrich Gottfried Stölzel's lost opera Diomedes, is the ultimate declaration of love, a pathoxic ballad whose narrator gloats even death if only his loved one was the one to close their eyes.

Listening to such a story from today's perspective, that relationship might be deemed quite unhealthy. At its extremes, emotions are a double-edged sword and this is exactly what my interpretation of the story that preceded me more than 300 years is all about. Puluseni glides around the fading tree branches of the love-blinded human mind: in the distance, you can hear the cooing of the crow of infatuation, you see the linnet of love circling the hawfinch of hatred and above it, all wanders the malevolent pigeon of obsession.

Puluseni is made to be listened to together with Bist du bei mir, so listen to the whole playlist.

Performed by Linnéa Sundfær Casserly, soprano and Kaisamaija Uljas, theorbo at Avantin kesäkonsertit on July 14th 2021 in Näsimäki Cemetery Chapel, Porvoo, Finland.