Great 5 stars review in Fanfare
January 24, 2025
Jerry Dubins
O’ Listen To the Music of Uroš Krek and Else Marie Pade Martina Batič, cond; Anna Millmann (sop);1 Jakob Soelberg (spkr);1 Danish Nat’l Vocal Ens OUR 8226924 (68:08 )
KREK Three Autumn Songs. Vöra bije. Salmo XLII (Desiderium exsulis). Samotno ugibanje. Vester, Camenae. PADE Korsatser. Völo-spa hoc est. 1Maria
Five stars: Moving, expressive music; a unique listening experience
No reader familiar with my reviews could possibly be more surprised than I at my venture into the genre of modern, mostly a cappella works by two composers, one male and a Slovenian native of Ljubljana —Uroš Krek (1922–2008)—the other, female and Danish—Else Maria Pade (1924–2016)—and a composer of electronic music no less. But when I sampled a few snippets of this album online, so taken was I with the beauty of this music that I knew I had to have it.
My first impression of this music and the poetry to which it’s set was the romantic ethos they evoked, but I wouldn’t label the music, at least, as Romantic with an uppercase “R.” The poetry is something else, which I’ll get to in a bit. Initially, the music struck me as a distant echo of something from the Middle Ages, the chanting of an antiphon perhaps, but no Medieval monks could have rung in the day with a matins that harmonized their parallel organum in the haunting harmonies of seven and a half centuries later. No, this is modern music, but it’s not Modernist with an uppercase “M,” a relief to me and to those, I’m sure, who have difficulty equating Stockhausen’s Helicopter Quartet with anything resembling music. As a side note, I should mention that Prade studied with both Stockhausen and Boulez, but in the case of her Marie on the present disc—I can’t speak to any of her other works because I haven’t heard any—the apple fell rather far from the tree. In other words, she put the techniques she learned from teachers to use in the service of actual music.
Nonetheless, Else Maria Prade did make her reputation as one of Denmark’s leading generators of electronic music; that can’t be denied. If she were still alive today, she might be amused to find her music described by a critic as lowercase “r” romantic. Her Maria, after all, which, by itself, takes up nearly half of the disc, is scored for a coloratura soprano, bass baritone, a speaker, chorus, seven trombones, and electronically produced sounds. And yet I find it to be both lowercase “m” modern and lowercase ‘r” romantic” in the moods and message it conveys, regardless of the compositional techniques employed.
Much it has to do with the poetry, about which the album note has little to say, other than in addressing the verses of Maria. Looking up the poets’ names, which are given, one finds the authors of the verses set by Uroš Krek to be mainly by 20th-century Slovenians, while in Pade’s case, unsurprisingly, all of her poets are very, very late 19th-century Danes, most of whom who lived far into the 20th century. In both instances, the poetry is clearly of an uppercase “R” Romantic stripe in that it deals with subjects of Nature, love and loss, hope and despair, fantasy and dreams, and the aspirational spirit that drives men (and women) to surmount travails and tragedies that befall them and triumph in the end.
The standout exception is Pade’s Maria, “which is structured around the Apostles’ Creed and consists of 11 movements that portray the stages of the Virgin Mary’s suffering.” In other words, one could say, I suppose, that the work is Pade’s contribution to the Stabat Mater repertoire. This reflects back on my initial reaction to this music, without knowing anything about it, that it had a Medieval, religious resonance about it.
Whether Maria, composed in 1980, is a masterpiece or not, I shall leave that judgment to others. All I will say is that it’s one of those works that cuts to the bone. From the first note to the last, one is held spellbound in its thrall. We learn from Pade’s bio that she joined the Resistance during the Second World War, received training in the use of firearms, and became a member of an all-female explosives group whose aim was to disrupt the German communications network. For her activities she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and imprisoned. Liberated from the prison camp at war’s end, she was nonetheless severely traumatized.
Though composed some 35 years later, Maria, recalls the anguish of that period. The music, in turns, is both hallucinatory and harrowing, the story it tells one of sorrow and suffering with no happy ending. It is, however, some of the most spectral music you will ever hear.
Coloratura soprano Anna Millmann is simply amazing. Until I heard her, I don’t think I knew that the female human voice was capable of producing such high notes so effortlessly and with such laser-like focus. The birds outside my window fell silent in shame when they heard her sing. While Maria is mostly Millmann’s show, the contributions of the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Jakob Soelberg in his speaking role, the trombone septet, and the electronically generated gauze that permeates the score with its gossamer presence all make for a moving and memorable listening experience.
I fear that the uniqueness of Pade’s Maria has led me to shortchange the a cappella choral works of Uroš Krek, which was certainly not my intent. In fact, it was Krek’s musical settings of poems which come first on the disc that initially attracted me, evoking the atmosphere of late Medieval or Renaissance polyphonic motets set to liturgical Latin texts. All, of course, are lovingly painted with a patina of 20th-century harmony reminiscent in some ways of the sacred choral works of Poulenc. Obviously, Krek’s compositional techniques, at least insofar as these vocal numbers are concerned, yield music of a more traditional style than that of Pade.
Listen, for example, to track four, Vöre Bije (The Clock Ticks) to a 19th-century Slovenian folk song, and tell me it doesn’t transport you back to the time of Josquin des Prez, with some very interesting dissonances that would have wilted his starched white collar.
Ljubljana-born, where she originally studied, subsequently furthering her training in Munich, Martina Batič has risen to become one of Europe’s most recognized and highly regarded choral conductors.
From 2018–2022, she was Principal Conductor of the Chœur de Radio France, and as of the 2023/24 season, she assumed the position of Chief Conductor of the Danish National Vocal Ensemble in Copenhagen. She has led many of the leading choral choruses throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands, bringing to her audiences and the ensembles she has led a wide-ranging diversity of the choral repertoire. This OUR album is an eloquent testimonial to her work. Very strongly recommended. Five stars: Moving, expressive music; a unique listening experience