Rising
Nissim Schaul
About this work:
This piece is a setting the "holy holy holy" prayer (sanctus in Latin, kedushah in Hebrew) in a quasi-Gregorian chant style, but with the related or identical texts in Hebrew, Old Church Slavonic, and Arabic. The piece will was premiered in Croatia and performed shortly thereafter in Slovenia. The idea is to “surprise” the largely-Catholic audience with Catholic-sounding music in the sacred languages of the two other large religions in the region, plus my own tradition, which also has deep roots in the Balkans
The piece is antiphonal, and the three choral parts are mostly independent of each other. The result is a haze of sound around the audience from which individual vocal lines sometimes pop out. As voices enter and drop out, moments of sonic mass and repose alternate. The droning instrumental part, placed in the middle of the performance space, is not optional, but can be played by any sustaining instrument.
Version: choral
Year composed: 2008
Duration: 00:08:00
Ensemble type: Chorus, with or without Solo Voices:Chorus with One Non-Keyboard Instrument
Instrumentation: 1 High Voice, 1 Medium Voice, 1 Low Voice, 1 Unspecified Instrument(s)