Der Sommer in Stuttgart

18:15 Introduction with performance of Claude Vivier’s »Love Songs«

Annelies Van Parys: An Archive of Love
A musical exposition on the nature of love
Staged concert for six voices a cappella (2018) ^GP

Concept and dramaturgy: Gaea Schoeters
Composition and arrangements: Annelies Van Parys
Music by Annelies Van Parys, José-Mará Sánchez-Verdú, Claude Vivier, Claudio Monteverdi and others.
Direction: Gable and Romy Roelofsen (Het Geluid)
Stage: Davy van Gerven

Neue Vocalsolisten
Johanna Zimmer soprano/Susanne Leitz-Lorey, soprano/Truike van der Poel, mezzo-soprano/Martin Nagy, tenor/Guillermo Anzorena, baritone/Andreas Fischer, bass

A co-production of Music of the Centuries and Het Geluid/Maastricht
in collaboration with Concertgebouw Brugge, supported by the Province of Limburg of the Netherlands.

The concept of this musical meditation on love was developed by composer Annelies Van Parys together with librettist Gaea Schoeters, who writes: »The great and self-ruining lovers in the stories that have been handed down have formed our unconscious image of romantic love. These stories form a vast archive, a collective consciousness of the shape of human love, containing all the love songs ever written. Claudio Monteverdi hunted down Cupid in his «Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi”, Claude Vivier tried to capture the essence of Eros in his »Love Songs«, while José-María Sanchez-Verdu focuses on the connection between Eros and Thanatos in his book of madrigals »Scriptura Antiqva«.

In Annelies Van Parys’ song cycle »Ah, cette Fable,« an angel is captured by his mortal lover. The angel finds himself in an unsolvable dilemma: if he remains on earth, he will die, but if he makes use of his angelic wings, his lover will not survive. As this little tragedy unfolds, the archive of love songs begins to vibrate: Words, sounds, and feelings trigger associations and memories of past passions, both sacred and profane. Echoes and fragments of other, older love songs attach themselves to this new story, interrupt it, complement it, and thus propel the story in new directions.”