ST MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS

Friday 10 July 2020

Nikos Spanatis, countertenor & Eleni Keventsidou, organ

Alessandro Grandi (1586 - 1630)
Cantabo Domino

Arvo Pärt (1935 - )
My Heart's in the Highlands

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839-1901)
Präludium Op. 156

Ludovico Viadana (1560-1627)
Exaudi me Domine

Pelham Humfrey (1647- 1674)
A Hymn to God the Father

F. Liszt (1811-1886)
Funérailles
transcribed for the Organ by Nicolas Kynaston

Yiorgos Vassilandonakis (1969 - )
Selections from the song cycle:
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair on Poetry by Pablo Neruda

Giorgos Koumentakis (1959 – )
The Murderess

Programme notes:

“Cantabo Domino in vitae mea” by Grandi  presents the  lyrics “I will sing unto the Lord during my life. I will psalms to my God as long as I live”.

“My Heart’s in the Highlands” is a poem written by Scottish poet Robert Burns back in 1759, which was set to music only in 2000 by Arvo Pärt.The main theme of Robert Burns's poem "My Heart's in the Highlands" is the love of the poet for the Scottish Highlands. 

 “Exaudi me Domine” by Lodovico Grossi da Viadana. is from Cento Concerti Ecclesiastici, Venice, 1602.“Hear me, Oh lord, for thy loving kindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy . tender mercies, are among the lyrics.

"A Hymn to God the Father" is a poem by English poet and clergyman John Donne (1573-1631) and was set to music by Pelham Humfrey (1647-1674). The poem starts out with a question that Donne asks from God that will He forgive his sins which he committed even before his birth? In the concluding verse he fears that he will still be lost (perishing on the shore on this side of the river Jordan), Donne is finally satisfied by asking God to set an oath(!) that he that His son Christ will take Donne to Heaven.

Selections from the song cycle: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair on Poetry by Pablo Neruda. Neruda’s most intimate and powerful early poems dancing constantly between urban and rural sensitivities, resonate uniquely in this unusual sonic space created by the organ, allowing the countertenor with his sensitive timbre to sing these beautiful verses.

“Fonissa”, that is “The Murderess”, is one of the greatest works of Greek Literature, written by Alexandros Papadiamantis. Giorgos Koumentakis, one of the greatest contemporary Greek composers, is combining Greek folk tradition with music language. In his ‘Murderess’ opera he recites the story of Hadoula or Fragkogiannou, an emotionally tortured elderly woman who lives only to serve her parents, husband, children and grand children and begins to murder girls, drowning them into water, starting from her own newborn granddaughter, believing that in this way she will relieve women from the pain they suffered living in oppressive and poor rural societies. We will perform an extract from the opera’s second act, where  Hadoula is about to be prosecuted and when she realizes that police is chasing her, she decides to run away. The piece contains her thoughts in a heartbreaking monologue as well as her daughter’s responses. The bayan’s part on the original score is  replaced by the organ.