- Title: Sub Rosa
- Text: Robert Frost “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
- Instrumentation: 12 Voices, or Mixed Choir & Stereo Tape
- Performance Notes: The minimum number of voices for the performance is 12. If performed by a choir, the places with solos should be performed by one singer. The dynamic of tape should be well balanced with the dynamic possibilities of the singers. General tape lines are written in the score, so performers can follow it.
- Year: 2023
- Duration: 18′
- Commissioner: Olga Prykhodko, artistic director and conductor of the vocal ensemble Alter Ratio, with support from the Fonds Podiumkunsten / Performing Arts Fund NL and the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung.
- Premiere: 17 November as part of Klangwerkstatt Berlin – Festival für Neue Musik
- First performer: Alter Ratio, conductor – Olga Prykhodko
- Buy Score: Donemus Publishin
PROGRAM NOTE
“Sub Rosa” is a part of the LUX AETERNA. Psalms of Falling concert programme, created by Olga Prykhodko, artistic director of the Alter Ratio ensemble.
On the occasion of the 100th birthday of the composer György Ligeti, his masterpiece Lux Aeterna (1966) is the starting point of the program. The project is dedicated to exploring and revealing multiple layers of meaning and interconnections between modern European and Ukrainian musical phenomena, in particular through the performance of works by György Ligeti and contemporary Ukrainian composers, combining a cappella singing and electronic experiments by Ukrainian musicians, both those who remain in Ukraine and those who have moved abroad due to the war.
Robert Frost
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
© Peter Kerkelov, © Maxim Shalygin
