Poul Ruders
About the composer
Poul Ruders was born in 1949 in Denmark. His musical career started at the Choir school in Copenhagen, where he was admitted to the Boys’ Choir. At an early age he became interested in composing. He studied organ and composition at the Copenhagen conservatoire. Though he was influenced by music from baroque to modern rock music, including modern composers like Glass and Stockhausen, his primary point of view is that his work should entertain and engage the audience. In his own words: “I want to seduce the audience, to give them a spiritual and musical experience”.
About the Stabat Mater
| Date: | 1974 |
| Performers: | Boy treble, tenor, out-of-tune piano, organ, percussion and mixed choir |
| Length: | 23.53 minutes |
| Particulars: | The Stabat Mater is used as a starting point for a text collage by the composer himself. The poem is split up by texts from diverse sources: Büchner's Wozzeck, Picander's St.Matthew passion text, quotes from Churchill and descriptions of torture from the time of the Greek junta. In the musical collage one can hear medieval music, baroque recitatives and boogie-woogie by an out-of-tune piano. |
| Textual variations: | The "Vatican"-version of the text used, but only the stanzas 1, 5, 9, 10, 19 and 20. Moreover, except stanzas 1 and 19 these are not used as such, but the lines are interrupted by other texts. As a consequence, it is not good possible to construct a colourbar. Instead, I give the complete text of the work. |
| Colour bar: |
No colorbar was constructed for this composition (see “Textual variations”) |
Information about the recording
| CD: | Danica DCD 8178: Poul Ruders, works for a cappella choir |
| More info: | Ruders wants to surprise his audiance, and surely, he does that. Recorded at the Sorgenfri Church, Copenhagen, in 1996-97. I bought this CD on the Internet, H&B Recordings Direct,1998. |
| Choir: | Camerata Chamber Choir |
| Conductor: | Michael Bojesen |
| Soloists: | Mikkel la Cour Rasmussen, boy treble |
| Other works: | 3 Motets (Preghiera semplice, Caritas nunquam exidit, Psalm 86) |
| Code: | 1998 RUD-03 |
