Smolka: Poema De Balcones
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Description
Surging sounds of the sea, over them the whistling, or even the calling of birds - or so it might seem. An instant later, we only hear the ebb and flow of choral sounds, with individual male voices whistling rubato glissando tones over them. But perhaps the brief association, the suggestion of an illusion, is typical of this composer's music because it was with similar, magically realistic sounds that the Czech Martin Smolka suddenly burst onto the international scene in Donaueschingen in 1992. It is astonishing, actually, that the avant-garde audience approved of such illustrative music, but it was so different - and was conveyed with such simple charm. 'Please, no more musical revolutions. [...] Please, no more new music, but rather strange music' - this is what Smolka demands in his 'Manifesto of a Re-tuned Composer'. His choral work 'Walden, the Distiller of Celestial Dews' is not the only one to follow these principles. Imitation, formal simplicity, altered intonation, and repetition can also be found in another guise in his 'Poema de balcones' for two mixed choirs from 2008. The text is based on only three lines from Federico García Lorca's poem 'Romancero gitano'. The words as sung are hardly understandable. We hear, however, how the sea slowly dances across the beach - with a rolling R - in the long-drawn-out overlapping waves of the two choirs. Slone I smutne ('Salt and Sadness') for mixed choir from 2006, on the other hand, employs the elements mentioned in a very different way. The piece is based on a poem written in the late 1940s by the Polish poet Tadeusz Rozewicz (1921-2014), a poem about love and remembrance. Again, Smolka does not follow the text in a linear way. He picks out single words and parts of sentences and constantly recombines them, playing once more with expressions.
Tracklisting
Tobias Hagedorn; Claudia Chan; Xavier Larsson Paez; Sofia von Atzingen; Nejc Grm; Victor Virnot; Ma
Jovita Zahl; Philipp Kronbichler; Peter Degenhardt; John McAlpine; Friedrich Jaecker; Sarah Becker;
Various
Palm/Gielen/Rsof
Neue Vocalsolisten; Zafraan Ensemble; Yalda Zamani
NDR Sinfonieorchester; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese; Anssi Karttunen; Dani
Julius Berger; Hyun-Jung Berger; Franghiz Ali-Zadeh; Marlis Neumann; Stefan Blum; Alberto Brazzale;
Andreas Fischer; Delphine Grataloup; Margit Kern; Pedro Pablo Camara; Vanessa Porter; Schola Heidel
Signe Asmussen; Jakob Davidsens Kammerat Orkester
Shira Patchornik; CHAARTS Chamber Artists; David Castro-Balbi
Jack Hancher
Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra; Sir Simon Rattle
Yorck Kronenberg; Christoph Seybold
Wendy Stern; Kathleen Nester; Amanda Harberg; Katie Lueng
Wang Huandong/Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria/Filippo Arlia
Vivum Singers; Francesca Massey; Tom Winpenny