The first marking on the score of Zad Moultaka’s Ubi es poetically summons ‘invisible voices’.
Like Hildegard von Bingen, the composer indeed seeks to make an initial voice, a prima vox, resonate in the furthermost of ourselves. The Gemme project thus seeks to erect a sort of arc in sound, a rainbow connecting earth and sky and weaving echoes between the music and the words of the 12th century and those of our time. Piece after piece, he gently accompanies the listener in going towards him- or herself. Consequently, do the cloistered nun’s anthems combined with Zad Moultaka’s creation not participate in a monastic liturgy as usual? They do not introduce the singing of psalms but are proposed as colours, gleams to attest to Hildegard’s principal inspirations.
Hélène Décis-Lartigau
And what if Hildegard’s visions and voices materialized to describe to her the state of the world some thousand years hence? Our contemporary world? The composer’s speculation and mental exercises? This project proposes a path, a taut line, a bridge taking root in the saint’s songs, from the brightness of O splendidissima gemma by way of Cum processit, which recalls the fall of Adam, or the disturbing Cruor sanguinis.
Zad Moultaka
Gemme was conceived as a whole, and Hildegard’s pieces chosen with the composer. We decided not to sing the psalms customarily flanked by the anthems and to sing the doxology only once. We opted for a Latin pronunciation. The programme unfolds a bit as if Zad Moultaka’s work, present in embryo from the beginning, traced an ever-deeper furrow in Hildegard’s sphere up to encompassing it in a spiral movement that pulls the listener towards Ubi es.
Laurence Brisset
Musical Direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers: Laurence Brisset, Estelle Nadau, Eugénie De Mey Caroline Tarrit, Marie-George Monnet
Hildegard Von Bingen (1098 – 1179) / Zad Moultaka (1967-)
Recording, editing and production:
Benoît Gaspard
Recording made at the Abbaye aux Dames Cité Musique de Saintes from 2nd to 6th of september 2014
1 CD – 13 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration : 55’10
Release : Mars 2015
EAN CD :
Reviews
Classiquenews
« By its depth, the dramatisme chiselled by its program, the bow tightened between both musical writings, quality of the singers who carry it, here is indisputably the best never CD by the singers of De Caelis. »
Alexandre Pham, 28/03/2015
Découvrez la critique complète de Classiquenews ici
Musicologie.org
« Zad Moultaka a donc écrit la première, les trois dernières et coécrit les trois avant-dernières pièces, tout en respectant complètement l’atmosphère originelle. Un peu plus de huit siècles auparavant, huit siècles durant lequel le silence éternel annoncé par Pascal s’est amplifié et étendu. Avec une bande son ténue, comme le son fantôme de l’apparition du monde. Et une ébauche de polyphonie réverbérée par les nuages au dixième chant. Qui devient gangue vocale aux suivants, le temps que les distances s’abolissent et que les voix des anges nous parviennent dans leurs invocations antiques.
Où es-tu, berger des âmes ? L’ensemble De Caelis, dirigé par Laurence Brisset, prête pleinement ses cinq voix de femmes, ensemble ou en solo, à cette monodie lancinante, lointaine ou proche, ancienne ou moderne, rassurée ou inquiétante. »
Alain Lambert, 26/03/2015