In a special Christmas performance, Cantare and Cantando celebrate an evening of music by candlelight where we bring Norwegian composer Kim Andre Arnesen’s Magnificat to life in an evening of intimate and joyous music.
About the Work
“Arnesen’s setting of the Magnificat (commissioned in 2010 by the Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir) approaches the familiar text from Mary’s viewpoint, emphasising her sense of wonderment, humility and devotion. The highly derivative idiom is thoroughly tonal, the tone luxurious and the work cast at a predominantly prayerful slow pace. The opening is especially haunting, with its unhurried and repetitive echoes of Pärt – before slipping towards Howard Goodall. Poulenc and Karl Jenkins spring to mind in the slow waltz treatment of the ‘Ecce enim’, which introduces the glorious voice of soprano Lise Granden Berg. The work’s only fast music occurs, aptly, in the vigorous ‘Fecit potentiam’. In the ‘Misericordia’ Arnesen outdoes even Messrs Chilcott and Rutter for sheer singability.” [Gramophone]