The duck and the bird both sang to me a lot. The duck had a lot of words, and the summer bird had much to say. She put the cradle on the field and set a duck in it to comfort me, Once I was just a little one, then I grew very nicely and I was one night old.Īfter two days my mother took my cradle to a fallow field. At you can find incredible pictures of the aurora borealis phenomenon, pictures that also greatly inspired this piece.”

Northern Norway is one of the areas where aurora borealis is easiest to spot, thanks to the warming effects of the Gulf Stream, which makes the area habitable. It is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena I’ve ever witnessed, and has such a powerful, electric quality that must have been both mesmerizing and terrifying to people in the past, when no one knew what it was and when much superstition was attached to these experiences. Looking out from the attic window that Christmas in Oslo, over a wintery lake under the stars, I was thinking about how this ‘terrible’ beauty is so profoundly reflected in the northern lights, or aurora borealis, which, having grown up in the southern part of the country, I have only seen once or twice in my life. About a ‘terrible’, powerful beauty, although the music is quite serene on the surface. Most of all, this piece and its text is about beauty. is my home now, so I guess my work has been increasingly reflecting my love for American music, writing and scenery. “Northern Lights is my most Norwegian production in years composed in an attic outside of Oslo at Christmas time in 2007, it’s one of the few works I have written in Norway since I moved to New York in 2001. Set to the Latin Pulchra Es text from Song of Solomon, the music is also inspired by the ethereal aurora borealis phenomenon, or northern lights.

Northern lights ola gjeilo lyrics