- Title: Lacrimosa or 13 Magic Songs
- Instrumentation: 7 violin players
- Year: 2017
- Duration: 68′
- Commissioner: Gaudeamus & November music festival with the financial support of Fonds Podiumkunsten
- Premiere: 7th September 2017, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht
- First performer: Shapeshift Ensemble
- Remarks: dedicated to Martijn Busser
- Buy Score: Donemus Publishing
- Buy CD: TRPTK
- Listen online: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube etc.
REVIEWS
"The incredibly impressive piece “Lacrimosa” for 7 violins. Discovering the music by Shalygin has been a revelation for me – At first, I feared it would be some kind of Arvo Pärt-style soothing religious Muzak, but the music turns out to be an incredibly intense experience of the highest artistic quality imaginable. Listening to this piece on a fantastic loudspeaker set was a bit like seeing the end of “2001” for the first time – a truly mind-blowing experience that transcends everything that one would expect from 7 violins placed around the listener. This music is highly expressive and deeply authentic, “crafted” by a highly talented composer that I can only recommend checking out. An important work of New Music. Or should I say Craft Music?"
"The mirror that is held before us is distorted, the unpredictability of it is just as fascinating as the monolothic sound fields."
"Shalygin takes us through a range of emotions, dominated by feelings of despair, fear and anger; the apocalypse is never far away."
"In thirteen movements for seven violins, the composer showed how to create pizzicato rains, seething swarms of arcs and soft overtone veils from 28 strings."
FULL PERFORMANCE
PROGRAM NOTE
Epigraph
If there haven’t been tears in your eyes, there won’t be a rainbow in soul.
Native American proverb
Movements
I. Light
II. Horns
III. Air
IV. Insects
V. Rainbow
VI. Lullaby
VII. Stream
VIII. Rain
IX. Madness
X. Melancholia
XI. Sirens
XII. Prayers
XIII. Roundelay
Lacrimosa or 13 Magic Songs, is the first chapter of the mycrocycle SIMILAR. During the piece the listener is guided through a sequence of intense and emotive phases, culminating in a profound cathartic experience. This direction determines the dramatic structure of the cycle.
Composer’s aim is to translate into the musical form of the Lacrimosa an immediate, open emotional response to powerful impressions – something that most contemporary art refuses to deal with.
For all the different techniques that are used in the work, its emphasis is on feeling, its aspiration is to capture the mind of the listener, to immerse them in the affect of each part. This idea can only be realised by a multi-voice ensemble of violins, which are at the same time a unity and a multitude, a soul and its many voices, a multitude of people struggling to come to peace with the world, with each other and with silence…
‘The composer enters a white room, unfathomable in its boundaries, empty, and silent. As soon as his efforts have brought the room to life, with each of its corners homy and dear, as soon as the feeling emerges that outside this room there’s no yourself — he just leaves, closing the door behind him, forever.
Having lived for 7 years with the idea for Lacrimosa on my mind, I find it all the more incredible to hear it in recorded form. Now I will leave a world that has become dear to me, and set out to create a new one. I gladly believe that for any listener this music will be that special ‘place’ to which you want to come back again and again.’
Maxim Shalygin
© Brendon Heinst
