Contrary to appearances, music can be calming. This is especially valuable in an age of excess, when unnecessary sounds pile up around us. Although composers have repeatedly pushed the boundaries – of loudness, volume and intensity – they have also naturally created a counterbalance to that trend. Screaming is countered with calm. Sometimes it is in simple sounds, softness and silence that we hear more.
Ēriks Ešenvalds has mastered this art, as his compositions are woven with delicacy and uncomplicated harmonies. Although they are often performed by large choirs, their intimacy is not lost, and listeners enter a world that is hard to grasp, as in A Drop in the Ocean, which opens with quiet whistles, breaths and whispered prayer. The unearthly atmosphere at the beginning prepares us for a confession of regret, but the music moves towards a flash of light and a happy surrender to a higher power. After all, without it, we are just a ‘drop in the ocean’... Ešenvalds’s mysticism can also describe relationships between people, although in Long Road, Paulīna Bārda’s words lead to an extraordinary encounter – with a love separated by death. The dreamlike ‘heaven’s shining meadow’ described in the text moves closer and closer, but the sounds remain simple and subtle.
Morten Lauridsen also likes to paint with such techniques, as in Les chansons des roses, where he conveys his fascination with the verse of Rainer Maria Rilke. The poet, in turn, had equally strong feelings for... roses, writing about them throughout his life, mainly towards the end – in French. And with these words of Rilke, the composer contemplates the transience of the beauty of flowers, though he is in no hurry: the singing only once takes on a playful tone, illustrating the joy of the enchanted (‘I breathe you in, as if you were, rose, my whole life!’).
In Trois chansons de Charles d’Orléans, there is even more lightness, but it is still a discreet humour. Claude Debussy also turned to verse by one of his favourite old masters, Charles d’Orléans, lightly stylising the songs to the music of his time and sprinkling everything with charm. In the foreground, as in the other works, are the words, while the sounds help us to focus on them, reflect on them and, above all, slow down.
Piotr Mika (Ruch Muzyczny)
