LMIC radio

Santa Ratniece: Vigilia del Mattino

Izpildītāji

Latvijas Radio koris
Sigvards Kļava - diriģents
Kaspars Putniņš - diriģents
Jekaterina Suvorova - arfa
Dārta Paldiņa - soprāns
Laura Štoma - soprāns
Gilbert Nouno - elektronika
Ieva Ezeriete - soprāns
Ēriks Kiršfelds - čells
Ilze Konovalova - alts
Guna Šnē - čells
Ensemble Sarband

Ieraksts

2020

Izdošanas datums

12.03.2021

Skaņdarbi

Apraksts

LMIC 086

Santa Ratniece (1977) ir neparasta personība latviešu komponistu vidū, ceļotāja un pētniece, kuras mūziku nevar sajaukt ar kāda cita skaņraža partitūru. Santas mūzika ir procesuāla — laiktelpa viņas darbos izplešas kā izgaismots horizonts, kurā atklājas bezgalība. Komponistes skaņu pasaulē vienlaicīgi pastāv dažāda dziļuma slāņi un stratosfēras, bet reizē arī mikrovibrācijas un jūtīgums.
Diriģents Sigvards Kļava par Santas mūziku savulaik ir teicis, ka “nošu līnijās šeit bieži vien fiksētas nevis notis, bet gan skaņas, kuras reizēm neiespējami ietilpināt tradicionālajā temperācijas sistēmā. Neskatoties uz to, ka pieraksts ir ļoti sarežģīts, nereti pat grūti nolasāms, viņa neraksta jelkādu tehnisku triku vārdā, necenšas skaņdarbu izfantazēt vai uzkonstruēt. Viņa komponē Pasaules skaņu. Šī mūzika ir tik ēteriska, tik noslēpumaina — kaut kur pusceļā starp dziedātāja ķermeni un viņa garu.’’

Kritika

"Santa Ratniece (b1977) is a Latvian composer who has taken a recognisably Latvian, harmonic aesthetic to the intersection between notated music and sound art, with results by turns fascinating and limited. Never does her music lack the spiritual and emotional charge we have come to expect from composers from her country.

However striking her voice, this album feels like an introduction to the composer that’s lacking a main course, whether by dint of Ratniece’s methods or the choice of works. Most space is taken up by her contribution to a work mounted by the Danish music theatre collective Hotel Pro Forma, War Sum Up: Music, Manga, Machines, but it’s difficult to get a handle on the music divorced from its theatrical context.

Perhaps, given it’s based on a Japanese Noh play, that’s the point. Either way, the high point on disc is the last movement, where Gilbert Nouno’s electronics work best with Ratniece’s spectral harmonies. Elsewhere there are interesting cumulative patterns and delicate textures, but plenty of gestures heard elsewhere before, stretched too thin or worked too hard.

The wave forms, repeating calls and aleatoric-sounding passages in that piece echo some of the same devices used in the stand-alone Vigilia del Mattino, written for the Latvian Radio Choir and performed, like everything here, with its combination of fervour and aplomb. That piece evokes the Middle Ages, a source of inspiration for the composer, while fuoco celeste sets poetry by Francis of Assisi and has a surer sense of form and imagery, its sense of flight and distance evoking his sermon to the birds.

nada el layli is the highlight. There are echoes of the ‘call’-like motifs used in Vigilia del Mattino but this is more distinctive. It presents a beautiful counterpoint of classically thick, mournful Latvian choral textures with the bright sounds of Ensemble Sarband’s Arabic instruments – a rare example of a Latvian composer looking deeply inwards and far outwards at the same time and to original effect. I may be lukewarm on this but I’m glad to have Ratniece’s name on my radar."

Andrew Mellor
Gramophone