Ögonblicket

(The Twinkling of an Eye), op.128 (1995). Five settings for high voice and piano of poems by Solveig von Schoultz (Swedish text). Each of the texts portrays a specific moment or state of mind: selfishness, love, passion, or inner meditation. The fourth song is more abstract, a song without words the heading of which is "A bird cast a passing shadow on the Buddha's dream", a line from the poem Anuradhapura. The last song, "Second", epitomises the title of the whole cycle, the twinkling of an eye!