Danish composer Niels Rønsholdt’s song cycle Me Quitte is an ode to love at its most excruciatingly, devastatingly painful and bleak. Written to be performed by the music- and performance ensemble Scenatet along with the Faroese singer Anna Katrin Øssursdóttir Egilstrøð and Rønsholdt himself, the work was first premiered at SPOR Festival in 2013 and then released as a studio album by the esteemed record label Dacapo in 2016.

Taking as its point of departure one of the most iconic love songs of all time, Jacques Brel’s ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’, the surreal, eleven-part song cycle distorts the legendary chanson like a series of fun house mirrors: pulling the lyrics apart and singing them – literally – in reverse. More than an interpretation of Brel’s ballad, ‘Me Quitte’ appears to be haunted by the song, condemned to forever wander through the increasingly mysterious maze of its lyrics.

Upon the release of the album, the Danish daily newspaper Information praised the work and wrote: “Me Quitte is the bearer of a rare beauty. With the gibberish of inversion, it speaks directly to the soul. Sends small grey arrows into the heart. Into solar plexus. It pierces our conception, and it leaves us both cleansed and confused.”

“Me Quitte is the bearer of a rare beauty. Through the nonsensical language of reversed speech, it speaks directly to the soul. Sends little gray arrows into the heart. Into the solar plexus. It pierces our imaginations and leaves us both cleansed and confused.”

Vocal soloist: Ida Urd Damm Bramming og Niels Rønsholdt together with Scenatet Performers
Composer: Niels Rønsholdt

The Danish Arts Foundation, KODA Cultur, Sonning Fonden and Knud Højgaards Fonden.