Just over thirty minutes of monumental and powerful music for choir and symphony orchestra. A call from the continents in the face of the climate catastrophe that seems inevitable. The work is called Silent Earth.
Karin Rehnqvist‘s music to Kerstin Perski‘s congenial lyrics becomes an overwhelming piece of music that will not leave anyone untouched.
In three touching movements – Silent Earth; We, Who Once Were; The Burning Earth – the authors describe their impressions and feelings of what is now happening to our planet. And they are not alone in that feeling. It is universal and shared by millions.
Here, the apocalypse of this climate is given an intrusive and strong musical costume.
Live premiere
The premiere of the concert series NTR ZaterdagMatinee, which took place in Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, on January 29, 2022 (corona-postponed two years in a row) was a real revenge for the composer, choir and orchestra – as well as for the arranger and one of the work’s commissioners, the Dutch public the service company NTR.
In the live premiere, which could finally be performed with an audience in the salon, the Dutch Radio Choir and the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra were able to take the turns properly and give an overwhelming relief to the score in an obvious musical flow.
Impressive, not least considering that the contracted conductor Dima Slobodeniouk only just over a day before the concert had to be replaced by the young Gijs Leenaars.
The next performance of Silent Earth is planned for the Baltic Sea Festival / Berwaldhallen in August 2022.
Poems by Kerstin Perski:
Silent Earth
Lonely earth
Silent earth
Seasons passing
Winds howling
Lakes glittering
Emptied
Fishless
We, Who Once Were
We are the ones who once were
Trod your paths
Buried our hearts
Deep in your soil
We are the ones who once sang
Loved you, cried out to you
Devoured your beauty
Praised your sunsets
Your dusks and your dawns
We are the ones who ignored your pains
Let you suffer from our greed
Like spoiled children
Blinded by your light.
Save yourself from us! *
Save us from ourselves! *
(* Save us! * Also sung in other languages, translated by the singers.)
The Burning Earth
(Translated from Swedish by Robin Blanton)
The burning earth. The tremoring earth.
The rock seething, bleeding, upheaving!
Hurling forth tongues, flicking, licking,
Winding, entwining with fiery fingers.
The shrieking flames. The groaning flames.
Rolling, plunging in thundering waves
Gulping, gobbling with burning jaws
Cleaving us… drowning us earing tearing us…
… Howling, roaring ocean of flames!
