Le vin des amants, by Fredrik Österling, was commissioned for a concert dedicated to the memory of Ansgar Krook. The work was premiered during the fall of 1997 at the Modern Dance Theatre in Stockholm. He describes the piece as follows: 'I looked for a text that would be appropriate for the situation and had always been fascinated by Baudelaire, and, not least, Verlaine. The idea was to use a text that described the situation of an outsider while remaining somehow hopeful. The music would approach the relationship to convention found in the poems of Baudelaire, where one can find a form of almost crippling artistic desperation over being restricted both in life and in art. Both text and song permeate the entire movement and it is orchestrated such that the different parts go into each other. Song and music resonate within each other, rather than letting the music simply support the song in the traditional manner.' A prologue consisting of the word 'je' (I) is added to the libretto, where Österling pictured an artist preening himself before the presentation of the text. This was, according to Österling, a way to underline the somewhat dubious elements inherent in the world of the artist. Tony Lundman (from PSCD 125) Translation: George Kentros