heit tár fullu... (for sax quartet)

I remember reading H. C. Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen as a child and being deeply moved by it. The story is about a boy and a girl who love each other very much, but when splinters of a magic mirror made by the Devil himself get into the boy's eye and heart, he starts to see all great and beautiful things as small and hideous while his heart turns to a lump of ice.

The Snow Queen takes the boy away to her icy palace, and the girl sets out on a long and arduous journey to find him again. When she finally does, she cries hot tears that make their way into the boy's frozen heart and thaw it. That passage gives this piece its title:

Heit tár fullu á bringu hansara og funnu sær veg inn í hjartað.

Hot tears fell on his breast and penetrated into his heart.