Vlaams Radio Koor
Time is Endless
Silence, vulnerability, beauty, hope, love. If there were a rucksack of emotions that everyone will sooner or later carry, this is it. And how better to give those emotions shape than via music and poetry?
No one can better express the essence of growing silent in a few notes than Arvo Pärt. Even without words, and with only two pianos. That was all Rachmaninov needed as well for his Suite No. 1, based on poems by Lermontov, Byron, Tyutchev and Khomyakov. The poetry of these writers is not spoken but translated into four different parts, ranging from lyrical intimacy through passionate and tormented to exuberant bliss.
But then the words come back after all, by poets such as Honoré de Balzac, Friedrich Rückert, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Ernest Henley or Rabindranath Tagore. Their various poems have inspired classical and contemporary composers to create intense works that speak of hope, forgiveness and salvation. Amazing Grace sums it all up: “I once was lost, but now I am found, Was blind, but now I see.”
Flagey, Vlaams Radio Koor