Eastern European choral music captivates the imagination through a carefully crafted blend of religion, Slavic languages, a generous dose of polyphony, deep male voices, a hint of Gregorian chant, and a pinch of avant-gardism. Festival 20.21 opened Monday evening with the program Eternal Light by the vocal collective Lets Radiokoor, featuring Baltic, Russian, and Hungarian composers at the forefront.
From the Great Night Vigil by Sergei Rachmaninoff, nine of the fifteen movements were sung, all from the vespers and matins of the liturgy of the hours. The work is constructed from dynamic variation between four- and eleven-part movements (in Glory be to God on high) and basses that descend into the deepest reaches of their register. Devotion and Russian nationalism reinforce each other in the use of Church Slavonic. The composition exemplifies symphonic writing, in which voices and voice groups are treated as instruments in a symphony orchestra. This came across convincingly in the seventh movement, where eleven voice groups unleashed fortissimos like a violent last judgment, never losing sight of nuance and balance.
Where Rachmaninoff strains to limit the number of notes, Eriks Esenvalds (b.1977) never has enough notes. His A Drop in the Ocean (2006) is a combination of four prayer texts dedicated to Mother Teresa. She saw her work as "a drop in the ocean." Esenvalds has the choir whisper, blow, chant monotonously, and whistle. Sometimes fragments echo protest songs, but then the choir retreats into contemplation with a delicate soprano solo. Music, faith, and identity are the hallmarks of Esenvalds. Ultimately, the choir fades away whispering and gently whistling into the mystery of the undefined.
Scottish composer James MacMillan (b.1959), a devout Catholic, clearly immersed himself in the writing of Miserere the namesake classic that Gregorio Allegri composed in 1638. But the Scot's version is in a different league. MacMillan opts for grand bursts of expression that contrast with moments of profound silence. MacMillan's Miserere is a cemented version of Biblical steadfastness; he dwells in the texts, resulting in a personal interpretation. The result is a fluent and accessible work, furnished with citations from Allegri, which, whether modulated or not, are highly recognizable and provide structure.
No fewer than sixteen choral sections feature in the renowned Eternal Light by Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923–2006), uncrowned world champion of sound clouds. Eternal Light (1966) is an example of so-called micropolyphony in which shifts between different voices can no longer be heard because there are too many voices. The layers blend into a cloudy passage. The score is nearly a meter high to accommodate all voice groups, allowing the vertical coordination to work properly. The Lets Radiokoor, under the direction of the gracefully gesticulating conductor Sigvards K{{NOTRANSLATE_0}}ava, distinguished itself especially in the build-up of the vocal layers in the opening. It was a languid sunrise, developing from a fragile exploration into a promising start of a warm summer day, spun out layer by layer.
Nunc Dimittis (2001) by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b.1935) sets words from the blessings of the old Simeon before his death, in which he sees the infant Jesus as the Messiah, as the Holy Spirit had told him. Pärt's Nunc Dimittis is, like many of his other works from the late nineties and early 2000s, composed in a free tintinnabuli-technique. This is a characteristic compositional technique of Arvo Pärt, in which a melodic line is accompanied note by note by notes from the basic triad of the key in which the melody sounds. Different musical textures alternate according to the paragraphs of the text. That text is certainly not dramatic, and Pärt's compositional technique shows little color and flair at first glance. But in the interpretation of the Latvian Radio Choir, Pärt continues to fascinate because the singers provide space to glimpse what lies behind the tones. Through precise placement of the notes, where attention to the space between the sounds gains importance, the choir managed to give strength to simplicity.
A contemporary of Pärt, Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (b.1946) closed the concert with The Message of the Great Tit (2004) for eight-part choir. Vasks has his trademark on homophonic textures but adds playfulness through vocal glissandos (sometimes vibrating), groaning from the bass voices and estranging sound clusters. With rhythms from the flamenco tradition and the occasional burst of laughter, it made for a fitting and expressive finale.
WHO: Latvian Radio Choir
WHAT: Eternal Light
WHERE: Church Abbey Keizersberg, Leuven
REVIEWED: October 16, 2023
ORGANIZATION: Festival 20.21
