Скачать или смотреть Vandrar (Connections) by Marsel Nichan

Vandrar (Connections) was composed by Marsel Nichan for mixed choir and organ (2023/2024). The world premiere took place at Växjö Cathedral in Växjö, Sweden 23rd of March 2025 at 5 pm (during a portrait concert of Marsel that Växjö Cathedral organized). It was performed by the Chamber Choir S:t Sigfrid, conductor Yvonne Steen-Ohlander and the organist Bengt Tribukait.
It was commission by and written for The Chamber Choir S:t Sigfrid and Växjö Cathedral.

Marsel's idea for this composition was to base it on the world's oldest preserved essentially complete work of notated music in the world called "Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal" which was found in the city of Ugarit (Raʾs Shamrā) in northern Syria. You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrian...

Marsel was born in Syria and raised in Växjö and wanted to celebrate the cultural history of the Kronoberg region and the city of Växjö with this work by letting this historical music travel the same path up to Sweden, as one of the first people (the farmers) took when they once long ago migrated up to Sweden for a new life.
The text in this work is taken from a short excerpt from the first tablet of the Epic pf Gilgamesh and a short excerpt from Gustav Fröding's "In the Forest" from his poetry collection "Guitar and Harmonica". Then Marsel has added his own short phrases at the end.

Text in Swedish used in the piece:
Från Gilgamesh eposet
Han som sett allting inom landets vidd,
som erfarit allting och allting lärt känna,
han genomskådade i lika mån det dunkla, han besatt djup visdom i alla ting.

Gustaf Fröding - I skogen
I skogarnes djup bor skuggan, och tystnaden slumrar där, och viskande bud från bygden den suckande vinden bär.
Men vad som av vinden viskas, är ingen av oss, som vet, ty susande språkets mening är skogarnes hemlighet.

Egna fraser
Småland. Kronoberg. Växjö.
Vi vandrar med tiden.
Hemma är där vi är tillsammans.


Direct translation to English:
From the Epic of Gilgamesh
He who has seen everything within the vastness of the land,
who has experienced everything and learned everything,
he saw through the darkness as well, he possessed deep wisdom in all things.

From the Gustav Fröding's "In the Forest"
In the depths of the forests the shadow dwells, and silence slumbers there, and whispered messages from the countryside the sighing wind carries.
But what is whispered by the wind, none of us knows, for the meaning of the whispering language is the secret of the forests.

Own phrases
Småland. Kronoberg. Växjö.
We walk with time.
Home is where we are together.