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Winter & Winter

Weeks: Mala Punica / Exaudi Vocal Ensemble

$20.99

Details

Composer
WEEKS, JAMES
Artist
EXAUDI VOCAL ENSEMBLE HORTUS ENSEMBLE
Format
CD
Label
Winter & Winter
Released
Apr 07, 2017
Catalog #
910239-2
UPC
025091023929

About

With its roots in Egyptian and Mesopotamian love poetry and fertility rites, the Song of Songs is the greatest pæan to human love in ancient literature. Its verses describe a love song from man to woman to man, flitting between lover and beloved in a mosaic of iridescent, enigmatic imagery familiar from its co-option into Judaeo-Christian religious traditions and a millennium of European musical settings. Re-reading teh Songs as literature today seems only to emphasize its sharpness and extremity: the inexhaustible overabundance of metaphor and its patchwork construction give it a decidedly modern edge. I designed a set of pieces with a variety of vocal orchestrations, each channelling the canon's intrinsic momentum in different ways: creating proliferating, growing textures, or shifting densities of sound like passing clouds, or folding the canon back on itself into more static or circling formations. I collated the texts from all over the poem, often bringing together related phrases that appear in different chapters of the Song. Each piece takes a nature-image from its text as a basis for its structure and overall character. I imagine each piece as taking place in real-time, like an unedited film. In that time the steady-state textures change gradually: the sun increasingly catches the leaves of teh plans over the eight minutes of the first piece; the wind rises and falls across the span of the second piece, and in the last there are slight, unpredictable fluctuations of gently rustling foliage. - James Weeks

Tracklist 7 tracks

  1. 1 Walled Garden I - Mala punica: Quae est ista 11:40
    Track
    1
    Title
    Walled Garden I - Mala punica: Quae est ista
    Duration
    11:40
    Composer
    James Weeks
    Ensemble
    EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hortus Ensemble
  2. 2 Mala punica: Ego flos campi 02:08
    Track
    2
    Title
    Mala punica: Ego flos campi
    Duration
    02:08
    Composer
    James Weeks
    Ensemble
    EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hortus Ensemble
  3. 3 Mala punica: Ficus protulit 03:32
    Track
    3
    Title
    Mala punica: Ficus protulit
    Duration
    03:32
    Composer
    James Weeks
    Ensemble
    EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hortus Ensemble
  4. 4 Mala punica: Hortus conclusus - Walled Garden II - Mala punica: Veni in hortum meum 17:29
    Track
    4
    Title
    Mala punica: Hortus conclusus - Walled Garden II - Mala punica: Veni in hortum meum
    Duration
    17:29
    Composer
    James Weeks
    Ensemble
    EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hortus Ensemble
  5. 5 Mala punica: Dilectus meus 02:58
    Track
    5
    Title
    Mala punica: Dilectus meus
    Duration
    02:58
    Composer
    James Weeks
    Ensemble
    EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hortus Ensemble
  6. 6 Mala punica: Descendi 06:36
    Track
    6
    Title
    Mala punica: Descendi
    Duration
    06:36
    Composer
    James Weeks
    Ensemble
    EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hortus Ensemble
  7. 7 Mala punica: Donec aspiret dies - Walled Garden III 10:04
    Track
    7
    Title
    Mala punica: Donec aspiret dies - Walled Garden III
    Duration
    10:04
    Composer
    James Weeks
    Ensemble
    EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hortus Ensemble