On the 7th of March my piece for bass flute, An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regur?, will be premiered at the Auditorium in Rome by Manuel Zurria. The piece was written last year for Manuel and it includes singing/humming, the lyrics is an old Swedish quotation. The piece will be recorded for the coming CD later this year.
Background to the work’s title
The title of the work “An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?” (Dost thou not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?) is taken from a letter, written by the statesman Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1654) to his son Johan in 1648.
Probably the best-known Swedish quotation for the English-speaking world (even if the words have also been attributed to Richelieu; the French cardinal considered Oxenstierna to be “an inexhaustible source of well-measured counsels”). In the age of the great minister (Mazarin and Olivares, as well as Richelieu), Axel Oxenstierna served the Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, as Lord High Chancellor, from 1612, and was still in office at the abdication of Queen Christina in 1654.
As well as laying the foundations for the administrative system for government in Sweden, Oxenstierna was a key diplomatic influence in the Thirty Years War, and he wrote “An nescis…” as a means of encouragement for his son, then serving as a plenipotentiary for Sweden (Johan had been expressing reservations about his own capacities in matters of state) at the negotiations that would lead to the Peace of Westphalia.
