Latvian Radio Choir | Sacred Chants | A Meeting
The Sacred Chants cycle invites to a meeting with 21st century choral music by Swedish, English, Ukrainian and Latvian composers.
The Spanish Renaissance Composer Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Missa Salve embodies the golden age of 16th century vocal polyphony and its enlightened beauty, notational purity and double choir echoes.
Shortly before his passing at the start of 2024, the late English composer and acclaimed Gramophone reviewist Ivan Moody had written a prayer for the Latvian Radio Choir titled Babbu nostru in the Sardinian Language, which will be premiered in the concert. As a reverend of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and a pupil of John Tavener, Moody found inspiration in the chants of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The work of Swedish composer Britta Byström has been described as effervescent, full of beauty and possessing a sense of sonic resonance and overtonal abundance. The choral work To måner (Two Months) was created as dedication to the Danish composer Per Nørgård on his 90th birthday, contemplating themes close to Nørgård’s musical universe: dreams, threads and moons.
The Ukrainian composer Victoria Poleva’s works have been commissioned by the leading performers of contemporary music, including Gidon Kremer and the Kronos quartet. Since the late 1990s, the composer has turned to the new simplicity, in-depth studies of sacred texts and putting them to music, as is heard in such miniatures as Today the Virgin and Mother of Light.
Programme
Johanness Brāmss - “Zwei Motetten” op 74
Tomass Luiss de Viktorija - Kyrie, Gloria, Credo no “Missa Salve”
Ivans Mūdijs - “When Augustus Reigned Alone Upon Earth”
Ivans Mūdijs - “Babbu nostru”
Viktorija Vita Poļova - “Mati sveta”
Viktorija Vita Poļova - “Deva dnes”
Brita Bīstrema - “To måner”
Tomass Luiss de Viktorija - Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei no “Missa Salve”
Participants
Latvian Radio Choir
Conductor Kaspars Putniņš