Solistkoret and Henri Raeck

Limitation and Liberation

A special kind of energy arises when the singers of The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir meet some of Europe’s most talented young conductors.

This season, the choir is delighted to work with the German conductor Henri Rack, who presents this concert as his final master's degree performance in choral conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.

Together, they perform deeply moving music set to texts that ask: What happens to people when their freedom is taken from them? These texts also speak of hope – and of liberation from confinement and imposed limits.

Program

Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001): Nuits
Frank Martin (1890–1974): Mass for Double Choir
Lasse Thoresen (b. 1949): Illusory Distinctions (world premiere)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf

Freedom is something many of us take for granted – especially those of us living in wealthy, democratic, and liberal societies, where we are largely free to speak, think, and believe as we wish. But this is far from reality for everyone. In many parts of the world people live under harsh limitations on their freedom.

Few things are more extreme than being in prison – especially when people are imprisoned under brutal conditions without having done anything wrong.

The concert opens with Nuits, composed by Xenakis in 1967 and dedicated to the “unknown political prisoners”. In this powerful choral work, we hear the prisoners crying out, raging, losing their minds – and finally sighing in resignation.

Xenakis fought in the communist resistance during the Nazi occupation of Greece. After the war, he was persecuted for his political beliefs and forced to flee to France.

Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir follows, beginning with a centuries-old plea to God for mercy: Kyrie eleison. This music reaches upward – filled with hope. In the next movement, Gloria, we hear a vision of life without imprisonment or suffering.

Next follows the world premiere of Illusory Distinctions Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen. The piece sets a poem by Iranian writer Mahvash Sabet, who belongs to the Baháʼí faith and has been repeatedly imprisoned by the Iranian regime for her beliefs.

This composition is dedicated to her – and to “all who suffer under unjust imprisonment”. The poem, written from prison, is both a fierce declaration of love and a call to overcome boundaries and all that separates us from one another.

A similar sense of paradise can be found in the Sanctus of Frank Martin’s Mass, but it is followed by the Agnus Dei, where we are reminded that all liberation comes at a cost.

The concert closes with Johann Sebastian Bach’s deeply expressive motet Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf – The Spirit helps us in our weakness. This piece points to a different path toward liberation alongside love: the Spirit. For some, this may be the Holy Spirit; for others, it may represent a powerful inner force – a strength we all carry within us.