Bruno Coulais
About the composer
Bruno Coulais was born 13th January 1955 in Paris. Coulais began his musical education on the violin and piano aiming to become a composer of contemporary classical music. However, gradually, he got involved in composing film music.
He composed the soundtracks for many films, for example Microcosmos (1995) and Himalaya (1999). In his musical style there are some constant factors visible: his taste for opera and for human voice (in particular that of children), for a search for original sonority and for world music and mixing different musical cultures.
About the Stabat Mater
| Date: | 2005 |
| Performers: | Two female voices, two male voices, choir, violin solo, piano, guitaro, string quartet, percussions |
| Length: | 67.59 minutes |
| Particulars: | The Stabat Mater was commissioned from Bruno Coulais by The Festival of Saint Denis. The concerts of 28 and 29 june 2005 owe their genesis to the celebrated photograph, by Houcine Zaourar, known as "the Madonna of Bentalha", taken in Algeria after a nocturnal massacre of the population, perpetrated by he FIS in 1997. The Madonna of Bentalha is a mother weeping for her son, the very same story as the Stabat Mater, two thousand years later. |
| Textual variations: | Only 13 stanzas have been used. Coulais changed the order of the stanzas. Coulais added three texts that lie outside the original poem. These Arabic texts are extracts from La Passion de Rábia, poems by Rábia al Adawiyya. The music is composed by d' Aicha Redouane and Habib Yammine. ( (see I, II, and III in the colourbar). |
| Colour bar: |
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Information about the recording
| CD: | Naïve V 5038 |
| More info: | I received the cd as a birthday present in 2006. |
| Orchestra: | String quartet: Christophe Guiot, violin Elisabeth Pallas, violin Francoise Gneri, viola Jean Philippe Audin, cello Laurent Korcia, violin solo Claire Désert, clavecimble, piano Slim Pezin, guitar Marc Chantereau, percussions |
| Choir: | Chamber choir Mikrokosmos |
| Conductor: | Loïc Pierre |
| Soloists: | Marie Kobayashi, mezzo-soprano |
| Code: | April 2007 - COU-01 (213) |
