Rose and Fog
The composition was written under the impression of one of Scandinavian tails. A beautiful girl with red hair named Cordelia is waiting for her father-mariner, who went fishing to the sea. Suddenly she sees a Queen of Fog appearing from dispersed drops of water suspended in the air. She warns the girl that her father is surrounded by thick fog and cannot see that he rushes directly to the rocks, where he’ll find his death. If the girl wants to save his life, she must sacrifice her own and give her bright beauty to the Queen of Fog. Cordelia accepts the conditions of the Queen of Fog and safely landed father finds only the disappearing ghost of his daughter when he returns home. Three parts of the composition represent three stages of the tail – a music characteristic of Cordelia in the 1st part, the appearance of the Queen of Fog, with her cold cynic sentences about possible Cordelia’s father death in the 2nd part, the dramatic transformation of Cordelia’s music characteristic in the 3rd part, being gradually “frozen” by wind instruments.