Over the past 40 years, a trend has developed, which some will call “reactionary”, for the creation of modern choral works — and modern in their harmonic context — but not too convoluted, relying on flat soundscapes. The goal is certainly a reconnection of musical creation and the many choirs around the world, but it is also commercial. If it’s “singable” and has a hypnotic effect on audiences, there’s massive sheet music sales as a result. John Rutter, Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen are the headliners of a movement that eventually (eg: Whitacre) moved away from sacred music and into poetry. Here, from Iceland, a superbly chosen program reconnecting mainly with the sacred. It’s sumptuous what we can still do on Ave verum corpus Or In Paradisum ! Stars, such as Gjeilo or Whitacre, rub shoulders with Auður Guðjohnsen, Galina Grigorjeva, Ingi Þorsteinsson or Björn Thorarensen, whom we discover speechless.
To see in video