Many describe 2024 as a dark year. So much in our world seems to be going in the wrong direction. In the choral piece Do not fear the darkness/ Var inte rädd för mörkret a different picture is heard and a different point of view is given.
Karin Rehnqvist’s choral piece from 1992, in the composition Songs from the Earth/ Sånger ur jorden – with Night on our earth/ Natt över jorden and Do not fear the darkness/ Var inte rädd för mörkret – has been performed often and even more recently.
The choral pieces were first written for treble choir and were published in a version for mixed choir in 2007/2008 and in a version for youth choir in 2023. Texts by the Swedish author, poet and cultural critic Erik Blomberg (1894–1965), from the poetry collection “Jorden” (The Earth) from 1920.
Do not fear the darkness was frequently performed at Advent and Christmas concerts around Sweden in December 2024.
Oh, do not fear the darkness
it is the home of light.
Had we no dark skies over us
ne’er we’d see stars so bright.
Deep in our light ring of iris,
we have a pupil dark
for darkness is what bright light does,
trembling long to mark.
Oh, do not fear the darkness,
it is the home of light,
Oh, do not fear the darkness,
it is the core of light.
Var inte rädd för mörkret,
ty ljuset vilar där.
Vi ser ju inga stjärnor,
där intet mörker är.
I ljusa irisringen,
du bär en mörk pupill.
Ty mörkt är allt som ljuset,
med bävan längtar till.
Var inte rädd för mörkret,
ty ljuset vilar där.
Var inte rädd för mörkret,
som ljusets hjärta bär.
Photo: NASA
