Exhilaratingly connecting continents
WEEK OF CHURCH MUSIC Rose-Ensemble from Saint Paul in the Quirinus Cathedral
From the Neuss-Grevenbroicher Zeitung (NGZ), June 14, 2006. Concert given on June 12, 2006 during the Kirchenmusikwoche in Neuss. Germany. Translated from the original German.
NEUSS (reb) Religious vocal music from the 11. to the 17. cen-turies from Krakow, Prague, and Moscow was performed during the Week of Church Music by the Rose Ensemble under the direction of Jordan Sramek. Truly connecting continents was this concert since the professional choir that appeared in the Quirinus Cathedral with eleven female and male singers, has its home in St. Paul, the sister city of Neuss.
The names of the members and their excellent knowledge of German let us conclude that the Rose Ensemble meets a claim for international recognition not only from the outstanding quality of the musical rendition. The fact that the Ensemble embraces the unjusti-fiably poorly known music from Eastern Europe between the late Middle Ages and the Baroque period, by no means connotes to the listener dry-academic ancient music. In fact, the joy of the performers could be felt as they were the bearers of rare musical jewels.
As a whole choir but also as varying groups of soloists, the Rose Ensemble presented anonymous religious music from the 11. to the 14. centuries, as well as music of the Baroque period from Russia by Vasily Titov and compositions by Mikolai Gomolka and Mikolai Zilenski, both of the 16. century.
There was also music by Jan z Jensteina (14. century); while the choir piece of Sergev Khovosh-chinskiy (b. 1957) - commissioned by the Rose Ensemble - blended into the program like a valuable ikon that presents, on a gold background, ancient traditions in contemporary colors. Even though one could already be intoxicated by the homogenous a-capella choir sound, one would not have liked to miss the instrumentalists, in particular Ginna Watson with her vielle. She not only interpreted mediaeval compositions for her instrument but also accompanied several choir works improvising with stylistic sense. She also provided "transitional music". This worked particularly well as indi-vidual singers explained the hagio-graphic background of the music to the audience. The life and signi-ficance of the national saints of Poland, Tschechoslovakia and Russia were brought home to the audience. Legends full of miracles about the saints Wladimir, Stanislav, Vojtech and Wenceslav were not allowed to be ignored. The guests from St. Paul also knew how to utilize the reverberation of the church volume. An enthusiastic audience noticed quickly: This was a first class concert.