Recently, there was a photograph on the front page of the Danish newspaper Information. It takes up almost the entire page. It shows the composer Tekla Griebel Wandall. Written across the faded photograph is: “No longer forgotten.”
Tekla makes the front page.
Over the past year, she’s been my constant work companion. Together we have worked our way through her entire opera King Hroar’s Skalds. As I’ve proofread hundreds of pages of music, she’s been quick to respond to my red-ink comments in the margins. Because when you spend enough time with a manuscript, it’s as if the composer comes to life. She steps out of the yellowed paper. Suddenly she’s a real person.
“Would the work benefit from a new clean copy?” she writes in the preface, before submitting the manuscript to the theatre. “Perhaps. But I can’t manage it!!”
And whilst we, 100 years later, are still waiting for that world premiere, a thought occurs: how much music are we missing out on today?
- date
- 30 Apr 2026