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MUSIC WITHOUT BORDERS
State Opera-Stara Zagora Choir
presents
CLASSICA AND JAZZ from Great Britain
Conductor Mladen Stanev
In the programme:
Benjamin Britten Rejoice in the Lamb
Festive cantata
Accompaniment by organ Miroslav Georgiev
Soloists
Natalia Chehonina soprano
Ivona Ivanova alto
Milen Denev tenor
Benjamin Britten Rejoice in the Lamb
The text for the cantata Rejoice in the Lamb is the poem of the same name by Christopher Smart, an eighteenth-century poet, deeply religious but with a strange and unbalanced mind. Smart wrote the poem while in a lunatic asylum. It is chaotic in form but contains flashes of genius, and Benjamin Britten chose some of these to set the music to. The main theme of the poem and that of the cantata is the worship of God by all created beings and objects, each in their own way.
The cantata consists of ten short movements.
The first sets the theme - every living creature, with every breath, rejoices in God.
The second gives several examples of characters from the pages of the Old Testament who are invoked one after another and who are joined by various creatures in praise and joy to God.
The third part is a quiet and ecstatic Hallelujah. In the fourth section, Smart gives his beloved cat as an example of nature praising God by simply being what the Creator intended it to be.
The same thought is explored in section five, with the illustration of the mouse.
The sixth section is about flowers, the "poetry of Christ."
In the seventh section Smart draws attention to his troubles and sufferings, but even these are occasions to glorify God, for it is through Christ that he will find his deliverance.
The eighth section presents four letters of the alphabet, leading to the majestic chorus in section nine, which speaks of musical instruments and musical glorification of God.
The last section repeats Hallelujah.
(Walter Hughes)