Mercredi 25 juillet > 20h Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum

Serge Taneiev
Saint Jean Damascène, cantate pour choeur mixte à quatre voix opus 1 (Création)

Arvo Pärt
Credo pour piano, chœur et orchestre (création)

Ludwig van Beethoven
Cantate funèbre sur la mort de l’empereur Joseph II pour solistes, chœur et orchestre WoO 87 (1790)

Elena Rozanova, piano
Cornelia Ptassek, soprano
Maria Soulis, mezzo-soprano
Frédéric Antoun, ténor
Alexander Marco-Buhrmester, baryton
Gunta Davidchuka, soprano

Chef de chœur Sigvards Klava

Even though a century apart, Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915) and Arvo Pärt (born 1935) both celebrate, each in his own way, the tragic and solemn nobility of the Slavic soul in their music. Based on a poem by his friend Tolstoy paraphrasing John of Damascus’ prayer of the dead and scored for four-voice mixed chorus and large orchestra, Saint John of Damascus admirably combines Bachian counterpoint, the sweep of Romanticism and the grandeur of the Orthodox liturgy. Turned towards faith and hope, Pärt’s Credo for piano, mixed chorus and orchestra espouses the same aspirations, creating a collision between two sound worlds that could not be much different: ‘One, serial and aleatory,’ specifies the composer, ‘the other consisting of my own version of a Bach prelude.’ The second half of the programme is devoted to a work written by a young man of 19. Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Joseph II—in which can be perceived elements later reused in Fidelio—also delivers a message of peace through grandiose architecture and a breathless rhythm.

Franck Mallet