Sørensen: St Matthew Passion
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BENT SORENSEN
Sørensen: St Matthew Passion
The Norwegian Soloists' Choir, Ensemble Allegria Grete Pedersen, conductor
[ BIS SACD / Hybrid SACD ]
Release Date: Friday 3 March 2023
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"To mark Oslo International Church Music Festival's anniversary in 2020, a new St Matthew Passion was commissioned from Bent Sørensen, one of northern Europe's most performed and admired composers and winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Music in 2018. The première was postponed owing to the pandemic and had to wait the following year for a streamed world première that reached a large number of listeners and viewers throughout Europe. The libretto [in English] was curated by Jakob Holtze and is made of fragments of the Gospels of Matthew and John, traditional mass texts, as well as poetry by six authors, three of them women. In his work, Sørensen says, 'lies a love passion. Not only Christ's love declaration to all humankind, through crucifixion and resurrection, but also a simple and beautiful love. The passion for the people we love.' Sørensen's St Matthew Passion is performed by the Norwegian Soloists' Choir and Ensemble Allegria under the direction of Grete Pedersen, a musical partnership that has resulted in several award-winning recordings for BIS over the years."
"It's a virtuoso account of a piece that takes the spirit of Bach and says something quite new." Gramophone Editor's Choice July 2023
"Sørensen's melodic gifts imbue the score, giving the entire work a marvelous sense of fluidity. The performances are superb, and the spacious recorded sound seems designed to enhance a sense of spirituality, eschewing sharp edges and crisp detail. This is a momentous achievement for all concerned, a contemporary masterpiece of religious choral music." Fanfare
Tracks:
St Matthew Passion (2019) to texts by Edith Södergran, Anna Akhmatova, Emily Dickinson, Søren Ulrik Thomsen, Ole Sarvig and Frank Jæger as well as the Bible/trad.
