Browse through a selection of choral works by Jóhann Jóhannsson, Adrianna Kubica-Cypek, Line Tjørnhøj, Bára Gísladóttir, Mette Nielsen, Niels Rønsholdt, Else Marie Pade, Nicolai Worsaae, Galina Grigorjeva and Mads Emil Dreyer.
Jóhann Jóhannsson: Drone Mass (2014)
Jóhann Jóhannsson described his composition Drone Mass as “a contemporary oratorio” and “a distillation of a lot of influences and obsessions”.
A composition for eight voices, string quartet and electronics, Drone Mass begins with the strings and voices and slowly integrates electronics into the musical landscape. Despite the title, Drone Mass is not a mass and not simply a drone. Drones are a recurring motif throughout the work and the resonant new meaning the word ‘drone’ has acquired in modern times was not lost on the composer.
SSAATTBB choir, string quartet, and electronics / 51 minutes / Score
Adrianna Kubica-Cypek: L’hiver (2022)
L’hiver from the cycle Saisons, for 16 voices a cappella, explores spaces and structures whose forms evoke memories of that time of year. It is also an attempt to evoke the physical experience of the season in terms of cold and textures.
Each composed season is a play between organized notes and freedom. Sometimes the singers sing certain melodies together but independently, according to their own sense of tempo, dynamics, and interpretation. Together yet apart, they create a specific atmosphere, with different harmonies arising from sliding melodies that intersect.
16 voices a cappella / 9 minutes / Score
Line Tjørnhøj: Vox Reportage (2014)
Vox Reportage is an abstract flow of human feelings and expressions. It creates a universe of reflection where we as human beings can deal with chaos, pain, and hopelessness.
The libretto, written by Tjørnhøj and conductor of Ars Nova Copenhagen Paul Hillier, is sampled from Elias Canetti’s philosophic writing Masse und Macht. Intellectual texts can offer interesting perspectives and fantastic associations but the mere text in Vox Reportage is not meant to bear the music. We instantly understand sounds and are able to create our own intuitions and interpretations hereof.
Vox Reportage experiments with electronic sounds – not per se but by making acoustic human voices imitate it – thereby creating a strong sense of contemporality.
12 voices SATB / 25 minutes / Score
Bára Gísladóttir: NĀT (2020)
"When I was asked to write for the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, I was told they were searching for a short, thoughtful piece which sort-of depicted the nativity scene. More specifically a piece that should portray the quiet stillness that remains after the angels, shepherds, and animals have gone home, and there is just a peaceful meditative calmness, bathed in the strange and mystical light of the star.
These circumstances were something that truly spoke to me and I started to play with different ideas that eventually led to the piece NĀT. The title is in the form of a word stem that can refer to the latin natura and natus (perfect active participle of nascor - ’I am born’). In Danish, nat means night, which I found especially suitable. From these ideas I went on to write a simple and fragile, but simultaneously a somewhat loaded piece for choir and double bass.” - Bára Gísladóttir
Choir (SATB) and double bass / 6 minutes / Score
Jesper Koch: Birkebark (2012)
Birkebark is part of the large scale work Korbogen by Jesper Koch - a suite for a capella choir in seven chapters, each with its own title and distinctive identity. The pieces are written to poems by Frank Kjørup and are strongly influenced by the Danish-Nordic choral tradition. It is characterised by sincerity and a feeling of timelessness. The music is complex, yet melodious, concise and transparent: "When I write purely melodically, nothing must stand in the way of clarity. So everything superfluous is stripped away", says Jesper Koch.
5-part choir SMATB / 9 minutes / Score
Mette Nielsen: Early Sunrise (2022)
”For me, the epitome of bright summer nights is biking through the city while the sun rises. After a party in my late teens. It is the time when you have finally let go of the rules of childhood, and the demands of adulthood have not yet fully come about. There is just a shivering expectation - of future loves and of an independent life, where you decide everything for yourself. The streets are empty and the air is cool. The birds begin to sing, besides from this, there is only the sound of the bike on the asphalt.
”Early sunrise” is the sunrise in the summer that you only experience if you are out a little too late or way too early.” - Mette Nielsen
Mixed choir / 8 minutes / Score
Niels Rønsholdt: Songs of Doubt (2015)
"Each moment of important decision in our lives makes a radical distinction between before and after, between the past and the future ... The piece is shaped as a series of very simple songs that undergo the complications of decision – of doubt and hesitation. The music seems to be looking both forward and backward – alternating between prospect and retrospect, between expectation and memory.” - Niels Rønsholdt
Choir, male solo voice, and ondes martenot / 50 minutes / Score / Listen here
Else Marie Pade: Völo-spa hoc est (1956)
Else Marie Pade was one of the pioneers of electronic music in Denmark. In recent years an examination of her private archives and her complete oeuvre has shown that she was much more than that .She wrote highly visionary orchestral music, works combining live instruments and tape, radio plays, choral works and much more.
The text of Völo-spa hoc est is an excerpt from the old Norse poem The Prophecy of the Seeress in Latin translation. The Prophecy of the Seeress was written down in the 13th century after several hundred years of oral transmission, and provides a coherent description of the world view of the old Nordic religion, ending with the prediction of the end of the world, Ragnarok.
The work is written in a personal, minimalist medieval style that Else Marie Pade developed in the mid-1950s – parallel to her pioneering work with electronic music.
Female choir (SSAA) / 8 minutes / Score
Nicolai Worsaae: Warping Through my Ears (2021)
"Warping through my ears involves, among other things, eight megaphones creating a new array of sounds. They provide a constant presence of air and noise, which drive the music forward and bring the listener from place to place throughout the composition.
You might say that I send the listeners on a musical journey through an undefinable course of events in time, space and historical contexts.” - Nicolai Worsaae
Vocal ensemble (SSAATTBB) / 18 minutes / Score
Galina Grigorjeva: Nature Morte (2008)
"The poetic source of my composition Nature Morte is the work of Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996). The piece is based on fragments of two works by the Russian poet with jewish background, Nature Morte (1971) and Butterfly (1973), which were written shortly before and after Brodsky moved to the United States, in 1972; the poems brilliantly reflect Brodsky’s emotional state at the time.
The basic themes of Brodsky’s poetry from this period touch on the relationship between people and society, the choice between good and evil, the search for truth, and the relationship with God. - Galina Grigorjeva
Mixed choir / 17 minutes / Score / Listen here
Mads Emil Dreyer: Vidder 6 (2016)
I have divided the choir into 16 solo voices that do not sing lyrics, but alternately breathe in three different ways, whistle, and sing bocca chiusa. The music is fundamentally static and is based on an airy sound that gradually becomes coloured. From the toneless breathing, a chord gradually appears. Slowly and undramatically. Although the piece develops, this happens so slowly that the music becomes as much a contemplative situation as a forward-moving narrative.
In other words, it is music that establishes a space for the listener – in more than one sense, hopefully, as I have tried to make the spatialisation of the sound sources part of the piece’s structure. The singers are positioned in a cone-like formation facing the audience. - Mads Emil Dreyer
Chamber choir / 9 minutes / Score / Listen here