ShadowLand
DaCapo Chamber Choir
Independent DC 002-09 (www.dacapochamberchoir.ca)
The essence of this recording weaves an ever-changing metamorphosis of darkness to light, highlighting the thought that neither of these polarities can possibly exist without the other. Night and day, life and death, earthly time and eternity are each a shadow of the other and which is real? The compositions chosen for this brilliantly focused choir provide exquisitely mystical and powerful music as meditations for a variety of texts highlighting this theme. The most dramatic is Whitacre's When David Heard based on the biblical passage telling of David's grief over the death of his son Absalom. Contrasting with the quietly poignant settings of Absalom fili mi we are used to, Whitacre's fourteen and a half minute setting moves through several different musical characterizations, evoking movement from sobbing to screaming, pain to ritual acceptance, through a processional passage. Other pieces such as Moonset by Jeff Enns and Nocturne by Leonard Enns which celebrate the beauty of night and the harmony of the spheres make effective use of overtones to inspire awe. In The searching sings by R. Murray Schafer, and Leonard Enn's The Amazing Day the choir celebrates the magic and lightness of nature. The recording begins and ends with two meditations on the sacred, Enn's I saw eternity and Imant Raminsh's O ignus spiritus.
Dianne Wells
