Description

In Lacrimosa, the double choir is approached really as two different instruments. As a token of this, the music sung by the choirs is characteristically quite different and alltogether, they sing in different languages: the first choir in English and the second in Latin — the languages of two different epochs meet. The basic idea is maintained by the Latin choir. Its text consists of fragment of De Profundis from The Bible and three partly abridged parts of Requiem: Lacrimosa, Recordare and Lux Aeterna. My work doesn’t have a liturgic meaning or any ambitions towards the category of concert requiem pieces. The English texts, two whole poems by William Blake, one fragment of a prose poem and one “synthetic neo-poem” built of two different fragments attempt to comment the basic text from different views: sometimes observing its reason (1st part), sometimes affirming its message (2nd part), sometimes ironizing (3rd part). The effort toward balance in the end is anyhow sincere, and it isn’t just a coincidence that it has to do something with the violin concerto of Alban Berg. It is obvious that you can’t hear the words easily while this is a piece for 12 voices, sometimes even for 14 voices.

© Jouni Kaipainen, 1990

(Translated by © Riikka Laitala)

Instrumentation

2chx

Category

Vocal and Choral Works

Language

La

Opus no.

op.36

Lyricist

Vulgata (san.)Blake William (san.)

Premiere

Finnish Chamber Choir, cond. Eric-Olof Söderström, Vantaa, November 7, 1990.

Commisioned by / dedications

Commissioned by the City of Vantaa.

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