|
Seemingly our conversation simply opened that long-forgotten door and Pro Coro Canada is today the instrument that brings the 50 year old inspiration to life! This new work of 25 minutes for 24 singers is a major undertaking and we’re very grateful for the continued support from IMANTA, the Latvian Society of Edmonton. The composer has provided a thorough introduction and descriptions of each section. Here are some of his thoughts (I set the composer quotes into prose):
The Stabat Mater is a kaleidoscope of the 21st Century, in the presence of Einstein’s and Hawking’s contemporary world. It is nothing pleasant and nothing nice. There is ultimate deprivation, devastation, injustice, and the madness of an illiterate, and ignorant crowd. We witness the grief about the powerful nation’s playground in the middle east and everywhere, about the oil industry, and the bullies of the world today. Meanwhile, the mothers are grieving for their sons, their daughters, their children. They are the architects, the gardeners, the creators, and they see their beautiful work in ruins. The rest of humanity is going to churches where in comfort they enjoy the sufferings depicted in music and art.
My attitude is for Life, for the Reverence of Life (after Albert Schweitzer), and against the devastation of the nations, cultures, and at this very moment, the World. We have to be responsible, and take action before these possible acts will happen. We have to do this with our tools, in this case, with music. Sometimes we are winning, sometimes they are winning (Mstislav Rostropovich), but we cannot be silent. Our voice is needed here permanently, ceaselessly. But it is not necessarily efficient to revert to old rhetoric, it is not effective for today’s computer/ game/ gadget oriented minds. So many contemporary aesthetics have come into our society, and thus, new shapes and versions of these old ideas must be created.
But, while we are talking right now, the Mother is already standing there, in the battlefield or in the undertaker’s comfortable office.
Stabat MaterLamentation/Juxta Crucem: this opening moment is hectic, chaotic, a mess. Many voices are talking, preaching, shouting, moaning: all of us take part in this scene. Some declare their faith, some declare their ideal mother, their truth, or interests, or belief system. And the Mother is standing in the middle. Why is she doing this? Suddenly, there is crying. Is she crying? And again, chaos in so many languages, like in Babylon, proclaiming, fighting, arguing, ...
O Quam Tristis/Pia Mater: a grownup man is crying for his mother and a child is crying for her mother. We are begging forgiveness of the mother of the enemy soldier. Mother (Mary), what did you think when you saw the angel appearing, what did he look like and what did he say? What made you believe, you married woman?
In Tormentis/Crucifixion: the shells of soldiers’ spirits, warfields, trenches, dreary winds, cold rain, and apathy. For a moment – reminiscing – the mother as a child, a young girl, with no suffering, playing. Then the lifting up and disappearing of the spirit of the child.
Eja, Mater/Stabat Mater: a hymn of love. The enlightenment in the form of the holy spirit or an angel, a indescribable feeling and consequent action of love. It is wonderful that Jesus spoke and thought about the almighty love. This is the hymn of love, with a question: would you bring us another child, would you do this again for us? Was this the right thing? You, most beautiful Lady, would you do this again?
Mater, Fons Amoris/Amen: meanwhile life is going on ceaselessly in the world: car horns, jets taking off, trains squealing, and in cinemas, we watch in comfort actors play the drama, the comedy and the war. And the mother is standing there, not knowing why.
|
