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World music CD DVD shop and Classic distribution
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ID: QTZ2046 (EAN: 880040204626) | 1 CD | DDD Ausgefolgt: 2006
- LABEL:
- Quartz Records
- Subkolektion:
- Choir
- Komponisten:
- BLACKFORD, Richard
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Interpreten:
- HUANG, Ying (soprano) | SKOVHUS, Bo (baritone)
- Ensembles:
- Ballard Lane Preparatory School Choir | Bournemouth Sinfonietta | Bournemouth Symphony Chorus
- Dirigenten:
- BLACKFORD, Richard
- Andere Infos:
Music by Richard Blackford Texts by St Francis of Assisi
Mirror of Perfection
Mirror of Perfection was commissioned by the Royal Ballet School and first performed at the Royal College of Music in March 1996. The words are settings of hitherto unknown poems by St Francis of Assisi and cover a wide expressive and emotional range: from hope to despair, longing to serene acceptance, love to bitterness, delight in Creation to an impassioned plea for peace amongst mankind. In the sixth of the seven parts the word "amore" appears no less than forty-eight times in a passacaglia setting of immense power and vocal dynamism. The cantata is no pious word-setting of an ancient saint; rather it is a passionate and vibrant evocation of a man who remains a symbol of hope in an age of spiritual emptiness and cultural decline.
It is paradoxical that the tiny chapel of the Porziuncula in which St Francis found solitude for much of his life was, four centuries later, overlayed in marble and gilt and enclosed within the massive superstructure of the church of Santa Maria delle Angeli. That the simplicity and goodness for which he stood should have survived the pomp of his canonization, the commercialization of Assisi and what in our world passes for glorification is nothing short of a miracle. Yet Francis remains a beacon of spiritual light in our technological, ego-based, psychologically-oriented twentieth century, and suggests that perhaps it is only poetry and the celebration of life in all its beauty and horror that offers any possibility of redemption as we face the new millennium.
During the composition I returned again and again to the image of Francis' little chapel, stripping away everything inessential, rhetorical, searching within for music that was a mirror of the saint's simple and profound delight in Creation.
BLACKFORD, Richard (b. 1954) | | 1. | Canticle of the Creatures | 7:01 | | 2. | Canticle of Love I | 3:43 | | 3. | Canticle of the Furnace | 3:06 | | 4. | Canticle of Love II | 4:36 | | 5. | Canticle of the Birds | 4:54 | | 6. | Canticle of Love III | 5:24 | | 7. | Canticle of Peace | 7:06 | |
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