Classical music meets poetry in this art song set to a poem by the Danish writer and poet Hans Christian Andersen. 'The Lotus Flower' is part of the song cycle "Mirror of the Sun" — a contemporary musical portrait of Hans Christian Andersen, blending Romanticism, flamenco, and modern classical music. The lyrics are based entirely on Andersen’s poems written during his 1862 journey through Spain, offering a poetic reflection on cultural contrast, longing, and beauty.
The music was composed in 2021 by Danish composer Poul Udbye Pock-Steen and first performed by the ensemble Via Artis Konsort. The video was recorded live at Nyvang Church, Denmark.
Some of the images – the so-called B-roll – were filmed in La Sierra de Francia in Spain, in the surroundings of the small village of San Esteban de la Sierra.
A poetic device
Hans Christian Andersen was both fascinated and perplexed by the behaviour of Spanish women, especially the younger ones. In “The Lotus Flower”, Andersen establishes a contrast between the Nordic ideal of womanhood and the Spanish women he attentively observed during his journey. He does so by juxtaposing the flower of the oriental lotus — a poetic representative of the Danish water lily or pond lily, which in Andersen’s time could be seen in almost every village pond — with the blossom of the southern pomegranate, which since antiquity has symbolised sensuality and fertility:
A lotus blooming on a tranquil lake,
As emblem of a northern female take.
The beauteous seed ascends from far below,
And, spite of northern winds, its blossoms blow.
Here, in the south, beyond the Pyrenees,
Grows the pomegranate, which, with magic power,
As if transplanted from some Eden-bower,
Passing at once to luscious fruit one sees.
Oh, lotus flower! How fresh and pure thou art!
How rich in thought, how warm and true of heart.
Fire-blossom of the south! And what art thou?
But late a child — a dazzling fairy now!
Soon though it flies, with thee life is a kiss —
Who would not die a victim to such bliss?
Oh, northern lotus! say a prayer for one
Enthralled amidst these daughters of the sun!
Original translation by Mrs. Anne Bushby (1864)
