new life begins …
The first track in this mix is a piece written by Gavin Bryars for David James of the Hilliard Ensemble. It’s called Incipit Vita Nova and was written to celebrate the birth of a child called … Vita. There’s a connection with the piece Diptych by Silvestrov, which was on my previous mix. Diptych appeared on one of Gavin Bryars’ albums, On Photography. He explains why:
I sat in a pew [at a rehearsal by the Latvian Radio Choir] and [they] started to sing the piece they were rehearsing before mine. It was something I did not know but I thought it was the most beautiful music I had ever heard in my life. I sat still, completely overwhelmed by the richness of its harmonies, by its serenity and by the way in which it evolved – slowly but inevitably …. I resolved at that moment to include this music on the recording and enable it to be heard more widely.
Then there’s classical Iranian music from the singer Mohammed Reza Shajarian, with Kayhan Kalhor on kamancheh / spike fiddle. The piece is called Avaz va Saz; the words are a poem by Sa’adi: ‘Those who give themselves to the madness of your love, free themselves from the burden of life’s worries.’
Guitar music follows, from John Fahey, Jack Rose and Carlos Paredes.
Like the first track, the last two tracks feature a male alto / countertenor: Andreas Scholl in O Jesu, nomen dulce by Heinrich Schütz and Carlos Mena in Sances’s Stabat Mater.
