Event info

ARVO PÄRT – STABAT MATER
Hildigunnur Rúnarsdóttir · Elín Gunnlaugsdóttir · Tryggvi M. Baldvinsson

Thursday 28th of March at 16 hrs.
Jóna G. Kolbrúnardóttir soprano
Guja Sandholt mezzo soprano
Þorsteinn Freyr Sigurðsson tenor
Unnsteinn Árnason bass
Hlíf Sigurjónsdóttir violin
Martin Frewer viola
Þórdís Gerður Jónsdóttir cello
Ragnheiður Ingunn Jóhannsdóttir conductor

Stabat Mater by Arvo Pärt is the centerpiece of today’s concert. It was composed in 1985 at the request of The Alban Berg Foundation. Pärt originally wrote the piece for three solo singers and a string trio, as it will be performed today, but later went on to arrange it for choir and orchestra. The music is set to the famous Stabat Mater text, probably by a medieval munk, Jacopo da Todi (1230 - 1306). Many other composers, such as Vivaldi, Rossini, Haydn, Pergolesi and Dvorák have also set music to the text. The hymn describes Mary’s grief as she stands near the cross of her son, Jesus, and witnesses his suffering and death. The narrator of the poem asks to take part in the suffering and to finally be granted a place in Paradise.

The small chamber music composition Es sang vor langen Jahren is one of the few of Pärt’s tintinnabuli works that are not based on liturgical texts, but on a poem, more precisely, a love poem. The verses by Clemens Brentano (1778–1842), a major figure of German Romanticism, are centered around painful longing for his lost loved one; the borders between earthly and divine love, as well as those between the present moment and memories are blurred as in a dream.

Together with the two pieces by Pärt, there are various psalms and songs by Icelandic composers on the programme which are all in one way or another thematically connected to the Stabat mater text and the faith.