During the first half of the 20th century, Danish Nobel Prize winner, author Johannes V. Jensen wrote a number of strange small stories, the contents of which are often characterized by the very sharp divided light between mythic mind and present-time thinking.
A number of these “myths” have their point of departure in the author’s visit to the Egyptian pyramids. As a small stone figure, – an old Egyptian harpplayer – the thoughts of an approx. 3000 years old music start to fly freely. Although nobody knows how this music may have sounded, the imagination of it went on from author to composer – not in a wish to recreate the old Egyptian music nor Jensen’s myth, but as a resonance created in the imagionation of the aforementioned, and the reading of the latter.
Previously, with his clarinet trio Gura – the growing Darkness, Mogens Christensen has let himself inspire by a Johannes V. Jensen-myth.
Mogens Christensens “The Nimbus of Queen Hatasu” henter sin inspiration fra det gamle Ægyptens dødekult og fordyber sig i genskinnet fra gyldne mumier og kongelige begravelser: Det umiddelbart, letfattelig musik, som udnytter det moderne klangregi stemningsfuldt og billedskabende.
(Berlingske Tidende)