This 1978 composition has attained the status of a leading classic among recent Danish classical music. The work is inspired by three major creators in letters, art, and music of the twentieth century.

Poet Georg Trakl¹s "Winter Night" is the inspiration for the first movement. Trakl often used the trumpet as a metaphor in his poetry; faint trumpet fanfares recur in the movement. "Three Worlds" is one of Escher¹s most realistic works, depicting bare trees around a bond, the surface of the water with leaves floating on it, and a fish swimming beneath the surface. In the movement the three worlds are depicted by the simultaneous layered presentation of three well-known accompaniments from the past. The third movement is a musical homage to Igor Stravinsky, and the final movement mixes all these elements to make a new blooming, appropriate to a movement called "to Spring."

© Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide