Nadeshda - MVSR3272 | Music

People of several generations in different regions of the world had to make the experience that the idea of home only becomes important when it has been lost. So did Nadeshda, an acquaintance of composer Lars Ericsen, who initiated the idea for this work. As a young woman, she left her homeland Moldova, because she belonged to the country’s Slavic minority, and moved to Northern Europe. She now has a family, job, a house and a home here. Overall, she feels well taken care of. But she is often captured by a painful longing for the places, smells, sounds and songs of her childhood and youth.

With “Nadeshda”, Lars Ericsen describes this emotional situation. The slow parts speak of the grief about the lost homeland; however, in the fast and then accelerating passages, the homeless person rises up proudly and defiantly, realizing that the concept of home lives on within oneself after all. The tonal language is clearly based on Eastern European, Slavic folklore, for which Ericsen had the ‘real’ Nadeshda play her favorite songs for him. Especially in today’s world, when many people from Eastern Europe come to us, the issue of this composition acquires an unwanted but fitting relevance.

Note: The audio sample is the BRASS ENSEMBLE version from the POPS FOR BRASS series, not the wind band version !