Michael Wolpe
About the composer
Michael Wolpe was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1960. He started his education studying agriculture and then served in the Israeli army, fighting in Lebanon. He received his musical education at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and at Cambridge University. Around 1985 he moved to the Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert, where he still lives, the desert being one of his most important sources of inspiration. Wolpe’s music is also influenced by Renaissance music, Jewish songs and Israeli folk music and he uses religious themes as well as current events. Michael Wolpe is a founder and musical director of the festival “Music in the desert”, where Israeli composers can present their new compositions. He is a dedicated teacher of music.
About the Stabat Mater
| Date: | 1994 |
| Performers: | Mixed choir |
| Length: | 24.00 minutes |
| Particulars: | Wolpe dedicated the Stabat Mater to his mother whom he lost when he was 14 years old. The composition is divided into 5 sections, each section containing some stanza's from the poem, to which are added texts in Hebrew from Israeli poets and from Wolpe himself. As Wolpe himself writes: the music is not avant-garde and not classical, but is hovering in between. To my ears, there is great variation in tempo and melody, but it is always easy to listen to, and some parts are very moving. |
| Textual variations: | The "Analecta"-version of the text is used, but with some variations: |
| Colour bar: |
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Information about the recording
| CD: | Michael Wolpe, Stabat Mater |
| More info: | The CD has no number, though it might be there in Hebrew. It was recorded at the Reformators Church in Riga, Latvia, January 1996. I received the CD as a present from Michael Wolpe himself. |
| Choir: | Latvian Radio Choir |
| Conductor: | Kaspars Putnins |
| Other works: | Michael Wolpe: Recorder Concerto |
| Code: | 1996 WOL-01 |
