[The Enchantment of the Stabat Mater]
Flemish Radio Choir © Wouter Van Vaerenbergh
Benjamin Haemhouts conductor
Vlaams Radiokoor choir
Camila Mandillo soprano
Marie-Juliette Ghazarian mezzo-soprano
Arvo Pärt – Fratres (for strings and percussion)
Alfred Schnittke – Drei geistliche Gesänge
Peteris Vasks – Veni Creator Spiritus (world premiere)
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – Stabat Mater
Three centuries of music history come together in a programme centred on one core idea: spirituality in sound. From Pergolesi’s Baroque intensity to Arvo Pärt’s meditative modernism and the contemporary creative voice of Pēteris Vasks, each composer seeks profound inner expression through musical restraint.
Arvo Pärt’s Fratres is a landmark work of the twentieth century. Built from repeating patterns, the music unfolds in ever-changing colours and tensions. It seems to stand still while constantly moving, like a ritual that draws the listener into a timeless, contemplative space.
Against this meditative backdrop, Pēteris Vasks presents a new work commissioned by Casco Phil: Veni Creator Spiritus. This world premiere places Vasks within a long tradition of composers who give musical form to inspiration itself. His language is both fragile and monumental, reaching toward the transcendent without losing its human warmth.
The programme concludes with Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, written in the final weeks of the composer’s short life. This deeply moving work remains one of the most powerful musical expressions of suffering, compassion and consolation in Western music.
The dialogue between old and new, stillness and expression, makes this concert an intense moment of reflection. Casco Phil and the Flemish Radio Choir give these works voice and breath, uniting past and present.
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