In the joint program with the chamber choirs Charity Chor Berlin and vocal ensemble the small, fine choir cantamus berlin takes on the topic of the very fragile peace all over the world. The ensembles dedicate themselves to compositions and poetry from different centuries and explore the tension between harmony and chaos in joint and individual contributions.
Date and Time:
Sunday, January 22, 2023, 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m
Venue:
Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert-von-Karajan-Strasse 1 10785 Berlin
cantamus berlin
Caroline Stretcher | Management
Charity Chor Berlin
Adrian Emans | Management
Ensemberlino Vocale Chor
Matthias Stoffels | Management
Tickets: here
To the program:
In 1916-1918 Parry composed his Songs of Farewell under the impression of the terrible world war, in the course of which many music students died in the trenches. Death and farewell are also at the center of other Romantic works by Berger, Vaughan Williams and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
In the face of human suffering there is always the question of “why”. This is impressively set to music in Brahms’ motet, at the end of which there is only the hope of a mystery. In Purcell’s compositions, too, the individual and collective requests for reconciliation and protection are directed to a higher authority, which may interrupt the eternal cycle of misdeeds and revenge. In the French chanson The armed man written by an unknown composer, on the other hand, the only thing that helps against the fear of the armed man is one’s own armament.
Meredith Monks sounds similarly martial Panda Chant II in which survivors in a post-nuclear age recreate their lost homeland in joint rituals. Panda Chant II impressively shows the aesthetic seductiveness of group experiences and is thus an open field of association from the orderly deployment of troops to group intoxication that potentially threatens every outsider.
After Philip Lawtons Now release (2022) leads from order to chaos and finally ends in harmony, all three choirs first unite in brutal war poetry. At the end of the concert, however, the promise was made with the piece Peace by Martin Åsander: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”. Peace – at least for a joint choral piece – is possible.
