The program will be opened by a crown masterpiece of Latvian music, Concerto-fantasia on in nomine Albrecht Düreri by Pauls Dambis. Its primal force and enormous spiritual power evokes thoughts of our own mortal position in the face of fate. The piece begins with the arrival of a horseman of apocalypse and his ride across the dark forests of Aizdaugava, where red berries are hidden tears of the sun. It is followed by an illuminating vocalization by a women’s choir describing the Virgin’s peaceful smile, two powerful movements of chants, for blood and for the plague, and concluded by the aethereal ‘Jaunava zvaigžņu vainagā’ (Virgin with a Crown of Stars).

Richard Wagner’s ‘Siegfried Idyll’ will summon warmth and light. It was a delicately glorious Christmas gift to the composer’s wife Cosima Wagner, a lyrical connection between an unfinished string quartet and motifs from the opera Siegfried (birdsong, Brünnhilde’s slumber, the immortal beloved, and Brünnhilde’s ‘treasure of the world’). The oboe plays the motif of a folklore-inspired lullaby.

The magnificent movement ‘Adagietto’ from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 will express powerful and crystal-clear emotion. It was a love letter from the composer to his future wife Alma – a composer, famous Viennese beauty yearning for an intense life of excitement. This ‘Adagietto’ is closely connected to Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film Death in Venice, which was based on Thomas Mann’s novel of the same title.

The concert will be concluded with ‘A Christmas Cantata’ by Swiss-French genius Arthur Honegger, the master’s final grand opus, which will bring us from the depths or darkness towards light and enveloping joy. The monumental joint choir will unite cries for light, popular Christmas songs in several languages, and an ode to all things living, green, all things that we cannot survive without. This sacred work of a Bachian scale can touch a person of any creed as long as they have ears to listen and a passionate heart.

Artists:

Rihards Millers – baritone

State Academic Choir Latvija (artistc director Māris Sirmais)

Boys’ Choir Group of the Liepāja Design and Art School (artistc director Ilze Balode)

Liepaja Symphony Orchestra

Conductor Vilhelms Vācietis

Program:

I part

Pauls DAMBIS (1936) “Concerto-fantasia on in nomine Albrecht Düreri”

Richard WAGNER (1813–1883) ‘Siegfried Idyll’

II part

Gustav MAHLER (1860–1911) Symphony No. 5 – ‘Adagietto’

Arthur HONEGGER (1892–1955) ‘A Christmas Cantata’