Madrigali

18:30 in P1–introduction

19:30 in T3–concert

21:30 in P1–After Show with snacks and drinks

Kaija Saariaho: From the Grammar of Dreams II
for 2 sopranos (1988)

José Luis Perdigón: Io

for six voices (2025) ^GP

Sidney Corbett: The Divine Darkness

for two female voices (2005)

Sergej Newski: Due madrigali

for six voices (2024)

———-

Salvatore Sciarrino: 12 madrigali

for six voices (2008)

on haikus by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashô

Neue Vocalsolisten

Johanna Vargas, soprano

Susanne Leitz-Lorey, soprano

Helena Sorokina, mezzo-soprano

Chiara Ducomble, Mezzo-soprano (* Work by S. Newski)

Martin Nagy, tenor

Guillermo Anzorena, baritone

Andreas Fischer, bass

The madrigal, which flourished in the Renaissance, is once again the supreme discipline of the art of composition with voices. And Salvatore Sciarrino is its master.
‘When, if not now?
Where, if not here?
Who, if not you?
This is what my music says to those who listen to it. It seeks encounters and extends an invitation: Open your mind, sharpen your awareness. Or simply: follow me.
I guide the listener into the music and stimulate them with tiny events…’

(Salvatore Sciarrino)

The diversity of the modern madrigal
In her madrigal ‘From the Grammar of Dreams II’, based on texts by Silvia Plath, Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, renowned as a master of graphically sketched sound development and ‘magical lines’, powerfully yet delicately explores themes such as ‘life and death, escape and madness, self-destruction and the struggle against it’. Sidney Corbett takes the audience into the world of mystical theology in his madrigal ‘Die Göttliche Dunkelheit’ (The Divine Darkness), based on a text by Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita.

In his exquisite ‘due madrigali’, Sergei Nevsky expresses the immortal longing for freedom and the hard struggle to achieve it. The work is dedicated to Alexei Navalny. And the young Canarian composer José Luis Perdigón, who is currently refining his craft in Elena Mendoza’s composition class, creates an imaginary atmosphere in his work ‘Io’ in which ‘sound and movement behave differently–fragile, interwoven and sometimes disjointed’.

The highlight of the evening is the performance of Salvatore Sciarrino’s ‘12 madrigali’. In 2008, the ‘master of silence’ dedicated his intricate and delicate ‘madrigali’, based on haikus by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashô, to the Neuen Vocalsolisten. Since the premiere, the singers have performed this icon of contemporary vocal art more than 30 times and are already excited to discover what new things they will find this time in this cycle, which will probably never be fully explored.