Repertoire

Ramon Humet: Llum (Light) for mixed choir (2013-2016) 47′ – World premiere

Artists

Latvian Radio Choir
Sigvards Klava, conductor

Program

Is spirituality, in the full sense of the word, possible in this fast-paced age of anxiety?  Llum (Light) is an invitation to reflect on this issue, listening to that inner voice that we so often overlook, given modern forms of socialisation and the resulting tendency to externalise our feelings. In Llum, Ramon Humet sets to music a series of poems by Vicenç Santamaria, a monk at the monastery of Montserrat and friend of the composer, which send us on an “inner pilgrimage”. He begins by inviting us to “close our eyes” (through a kind of lullaby) and then to “journey inwards” (to the accompaniment of a march) in order to achieve “a heart at peace” and “rays of light” prior to the “Alleluia” that concludes the piece. In contrast with the emotional explosion of traditional alleluias, in the final movements, Humet creates interplay between full sonority and the “depths of silence”, as he explains, which is another way of describing one of the verses of the poem  Pau al cor (A Heart at Peace): “Silence, gateway to the world”. As Pascal Quignard said, with good reason, silence is a song by privation.

This concert is included in the program of the Barcelona Obertura Spring Festival 2023