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Reviewer: Alexandra Coghlan
It takes a brave composer to go up against Bach, and despite the best attempts of Jan-Geert Wolff’s elegant booklet-notes to convince us otherwise, that is exactly what is asked of Sven-David Sandström in this disc from Hanover’s Kammerchor. Sweden’s foremost contemporary composer has spent recent years expanding his choral repertoire, not only setting the same six texts as Bach’s motets and a St Matthew Passion but also giving himself the challenge of writing music for all the feast days of the liturgical calendar. Conductor Stephan Doormann here creates a composite cycle of six motets: three from Bach and three from Sandström. By avoiding duplication of any single text, Doormann ensures this is a dialogue rather than – as Wolff terms it – a musical ‘boxing match’. The result is a thoughtful and thought-provoking blend of the familiar and the unexpected, a musical meditation on texts and music we listen to too frequently to hear clearly.
Sandström’s Komm, Jesu, komm is a heady opener, plunging us into the cloudy cluster-chords best known to English audiences from his astonishing Es ist ein ros’ arrangement. Rather than emulate Bach’s stately exhortations, Sandström’s repeated cries of ‘Komm’ have a scattered, Babellike quality, gathering gradually to greater unanimity and strength. Other highlights include the exquisite chorale ‘Du heilige Brunst’ from Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf – daringly simple – and the rhythmic instability and excitement that open Lobet den Herrn.
The Bach performances (accompanied by La Festa Musicale) are tidy and precise – faultless for contrapuntal clarity. However, they lack the excitement, the risk brought to the Sandström motets. Almost too respectful and understated in their gestures, they load the dice in favour of the Swedish composer. It’s an advantage he really doesn’t need; Sandström’s works stand on their own expressive and idiosyncratic merits. |
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