Aeternam — Epitaph for Gaza

A movement from the Requiem of the Catalan composer, for years attached to the Escolania de Montserrat boys' choir. Its foundation is the Introit of the Mass for the dead, words said over graves for centuries. Vivancos sets contemporary heterophony beside the plainness of old chant.

A motet from the collection Communiones totius anni, published in Venice in 1611. Zieleński set this text — a verse of Jeremiah taken up in Matthew's Gospel — so that the overlapping voices themselves become a cry. Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, is in the biblical tradition the figure of the mother mourning every innocent victim; the motet was sung in the liturgy of the Holy Innocents.

Written at Jordi Savall's request three days after the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004. Pärt set a medieval antiphon in his tintinnabuli style, the style he found after ten years of creative silence. The simple formula returns here like breathing: it lasts, instead of leading to a climax.

The Norwegian composer set the responsory O magnum mysterium for choir and solo cello. The voice of the instrument, so often compared to the human one, holds an intimate dialogue with the choir. The text speaks of a birth; in this programme, of the birth of the Prince of Peace.

The composer, a pupil of Myroslav Skoryk, was one of the leading figures of contemporary Ukrainian music. She died in Kyiv in 2022, in the first days of the Russian invasion, when access to medical care was restricted. Her prayer to the Mother of God, built on simple melodic lines, sounds today like a testimony.

A fragment of the Creed from a mass by Lotti, who worked in Venice at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many settings of this text by him survive, for various forces; the eight-voice version is among the most affecting. The chromatic movement of the voices and the dense texture make an image of the weight of the cross: Baroque expression subordinated to the theology of the Passion.

The American composer, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote this piece to a commission from the Nederlands Kamerkoor for its “150 Psalms” series. Its chamber forces and light texture set it apart from the rest of the programme: instead of a lament comes an image of the smallest creatures, which find a nest beside the altar. The ensemble closed the announcement of the evening with the same psalm — with the hope that a day will come when anyone can say “How amiable are thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts”.

Part of the monumental cycle The Veil of the Temple, first performed at the Temple Church in London in 2003; the text comes from the poetry of Mikhail Lermontov. The music stands completely still, without a climax, like an icon in sound. In this programme the silence is the climax: a gesture commending the victims of Gaza.

One of Tavener's best known choral works, written in memory of his mother, to a text from the Byzantine liturgy. The composer sets two six-voice choirs side by side, and their overlapping phrases create resonance and space: a dialogue between earth and heaven. The last refrain carries the evening from pain towards a promise.