O varium fortune

Composer Peter Schindler on this separate edition from “Perpetuum mobile”:

This rhythmic strophic song on text no. 14 is the first of a group of poems on happiness and its fickleness in the Codex Buranus. The impermanence of happiness is described in short, restless phrases and juxtaposed images that constantly tilt in opposing directions.

An ancient theme based on Psalm 113:7 is also incorporated: “de stercore pauperem erigens” (out of the dirt he raises the poor). This indicates how familiar such themes were at the time. The beginning and end of the poem are linked as if forming a wheel, symbolizing the eternal up and down of the wheel of fortune through words. It’s well known that luck is a changeable diva; in the vernacular it’s “Easy come, easy go”.

The choir performs this poem in a mostly homophonic setting at a moderate tempo, with a rather distanced and descriptive attitude. The choir gives the audience wise advice: it is safer to choose the middle than to strive for the top of the wheel. Perhaps the poet Eduard Mörike knew these lines, when he wrote, “Doch in der Mitten liegt holdes Bescheiden” (For in the middle lies modest contentment”).