Søvnen (The Sleep), for chorus and orchestra, Opus 18, is Carl Nielsen's second major choral work. It was first performed at the Music Society (Musikforeningen) in Copenhagen on 21 March 1905 under the baton of the composer. Background The idea of writing Søvnen occurred to Nielsen in Athens shortly after he had composed the Helios Overture in early 1903. He asked Julius Lehmann whether he would like to write the text for the work but Lehmann declined. As a result, Nielsen began to write a text himself. Although he did not get very far with it, the idea behind the work comes across as calm sleep evolves into a nightmare: "The sons of Sleep, the Dreams, and their sisters, the Dream Sisters, rise up sleepily one by one. They are chained under the crown of the balm tree where first lazily, then attentively, they lift their heads and look in front of them... The whole world shakes and everything seems about to explode. Some voices shout for murder and blood." However, Nielsen had difficulty in advancing with the work. On 26 November 1903, in a letter to his friend Henrik Knudsen, he explains: "Today I have begun work on ‘Sleep’. It is indeed high time I did begin, for tomorrow it is the 28th of November and thus just a year since Saul and David was played for the first time, and in all that time I have only managed to produce the Helios Overture." In his memoirs, Svend Godske-Nielsen tells of how Nielsen appeared to escape from his difficulties when he "managed to write his beautiful melody for the poem Sænk kun dit Hoved, du Blomst (Lower thy head, o flower)." Johannes Jørgensen, who wrote the text of the song on 8 December 1903, also wrote the text for Søvnen although it is not clear how closely the two are related. In a letter to Johannes Jørgensen dated 25 July 1903, Nielsen explains: I would like to portray sleep in music, a sort of hymn to its glory. Sleep heals all wounds and alleviates all troubles, it is the greatest good for all living creatures and the blissful state where nothing is hard and palpable but everything swims along in a long, golden eternity. Sleep has its dreams, both good and bad, but they must each return to their own quarters: for sleep can probably be disturbed but it