«I’m excited and grateful for Eystein Sandvik’s insightful review of our concert with Leçons de Ténèbres. I’m also glad that we chose Eivind Buene when commissioning a piece based on Couperin’s version, set in the context of the current situation in Israel and Palestine.
READ EXCERPTS FROM THE REVIEW HERE, OR LISTEN TO THE LINK
- «It’s a work that grabs me and touches me on various levels and in different ways. It has a distinctive musical expression, a clear concept, and, not least, a clear message.»
- «It is a work with strong connections, both to history and to the present.»
- «The French Baroque music is very different. It is much more stripped-down, simple, intimate, and yet deeply expressive and very beautiful, despite the strong expressions of suffering portrayed in these Lamentations. I think Eivind Buene has succeeded in creating a modern version of the same slightly Baroque aesthetic.»
- «The fundamental approach in this piece is to juxtapose the Lamentations from the Old Testament, which are poetic texts depicting the suffering of a war-torn Israeli people, with Israel’s role today as a long-standing occupying power, and the brutal conduct of the Israeli army toward the Palestinian population.»
- «There’s a clear and distinct message here that Israel is not living up to its own ideals and has gone down the wrong path. Particularly one line from the Lamentations is repeated several times, albeit in Latin. In Norwegian, it becomes ‘Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,’ which can naturally be interpreted as a call to today’s Israel to reflect on the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population.»
- «In Couperin’s version, there are partly two bright female voices over a very simple accompaniment. Here, there are four female voices from Song Circus, partly singing in a very high register, cultivating this very bright, shimmering sound over the viola da gamba. It’s a combination of voices and ensemble rarely heard in music composed today, with a subtle use of finger cymbals adding to the expression.»
- «It’s not very intense or extreme, and there aren’t many of the vocal special effects often heard in contemporary music written for voices. It’s kept within this simple expression, and it leaves an impression. The simplicity and the unique sound that emerges from this ensemble is both moving and fascinating.»
- «There is, of course, an entirely different context here, which the composer could not have foreseen when he completed his work before this date. But I believe the conditions for the massive warfare we now see from Israel are rooted in a dehumanization of the civilian population affected, a dehumanization that is clearly expressed in these testimonies from Israeli soldiers. It is terrifying and horrific to listen to, even though the testimonies unfortunately pale in comparison to the reality now unfolding in Gaza, which makes me experience the power of this otherwise rather quiet music, the setting of the Lamentations, as even greater.»
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