Nordic Voices



Friday 8 March, 20:00
Gamle Aker Church
NOK 300 / 200

Gripping Lamentations from the Renaissance to the present day


How lonely sits the city that was full of people. How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations. She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.


Lamentations 1:1

The Book of Lamentations was written by the prophet Jeremiah, who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophet suffers with the people and with their pain and misfortune, and prays for the city and its inhabitants. The texts present suffering on a deep and personal level and are, sadly, just as relevant today as they were when they were written. Composers throughout the centuries have set Lamentations to music. Especially the Renaissance composers used the texts in rich vocal textures and compositions tailored for Easter. Nordic Voices will perform four musical adaptations by Spanish Tomas Luis de Victoria and Italian Carlo Gesualdo, two of the greats of the Renaissance. Victoria's nine lamentations were written for performance in the Holy Week and next to Requiem were his most eminent works. On the other hand, Gesualdo's interpretation of Lamentations must have been shocking to the audiences of the day. Where other composers toned down the musical expression in association with these texts, Gesualdo applied ground breaking polyphony, full of personal passion and emotionality. The timeless works of Victoria and Gesualdo are contrasted with the contemporary expression of Lamentation I & II by Geir Bratlie and Sun Prayer and Heavenly Father by Lasse Thoresen. During the concert, Nordic Voices will also premiere a new work by Swedish Madeleine Isaksson called Terre de l'absence. Text material in the work is drawn from the Syrian poet Adonis' poetry collection Songs of Mihyar of Damascus, in French translation. Adonis is considered to be the greatest living poet of the Arab world, and his poetry is now more relevant than ever. Nordic Voices has a close relationship with the Lamentations texts, and they have had a central place in their repertoire for many years.



Nordic Voices is a Norwegian vocal sextet founded in 1996. The ensemble's six members were educated at the The Norwegian Academy of Music and The Norwegian Academy of Opera. Their repertoire ranges from Gregorian chant to modern and contemporary classical music. In addition to performing concerts in Norway, they have toured and performed in a number of countries, including the USA, Taiwan, Japan, South Africa and several European countries. In 2007 they released the album Reges Terrae with music from the 1500s recorded in the medieval Ringsaker church in Hedmark, Norway. The album was nominated for a Spellemann award in 2007. The album Lamentations was released the following year, and included music by Gesualdo, Palestrina and Victoria.



Madeleine Isaksson (*1956) studied composition at the Academy of Music in Stockholm, and in the Netherlands and France. Isaksson has lived in France since the early 1990s. Meetings with composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Iannis Xenakis and Morton Feldman have all contributed to Isaksson's own development as a composer. Isaksson describes her music as the relationship between different sound colours and contrasting elements.

Madeleine Isaksson (foto: Jean-Louis Garnell), Nordic Voices (foto: Guri Dahl)