Hans Christian Andersen's "The Pen and the Inkwell"

Michael and I are reading all of Hans Christian Andersen's stories as part of our Four Seasons Reading Club (in the Haugaard translation).

Today we read "The Pen and the Inkwell," a story I set as an intermezzo for soprano, tenor, baritone, violin, and piano more than twenty years ago. It was published in 2003 by Subito.

Listening to the computer-generated recording makes me kind of sad, because I realize that even though it is (still) exactly the way I feel the story should be set, it hasn't, as far as I know, made its way onto any stage. My versions of the characters (the pen, the inkwell, and the narrator) have never been played by singers or even puppets.

And that means the piece has never been fully alive except inside my head.

You can find a link to the music here, and you can find a public domain translation of the story here.