Latvijas Radio kora jubilejas koncerts. Sakrālie dziedājumi

The Latvian Radio Choir
Conductor Kaspars Putniņš
Programme: Krists Auznieks, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Santa Ratniece, Mārtiņš Viļums

Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
These are the biblical verses that Krists Auzinieks bases his new work Sensus on. The only meaningful things and experiences are the ones that change us, revive our minds, and bring light into our lives. These themes are further explored in two more new Latvian compositions – Mārtiņš Viļums’ Lux aeterna and Santa Ratniece’s Nunc dimitis. The Canti Sacri programmes always feature a conversation between composers of different time periods. This time, the new Latvian pieces will be joined by a composition that is said to have saved new polyphonic music from disappearing from Western churches - Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli. The mass was written around 1563 when the Council of Trent was largely opposed to the creation of new polyphonic sacred music because it was thought to be too self-serving and based songs of the secular world and therefore did not display appropriate reverence towards the sacred texts. After hearing Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, they abandoned their previous stance and decided that something so beautiful and valuable should not be banned and destroyed, and that the other composers had just become too careless and should “…not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of their minds.”