Riga City Council invites you to the 35th International Organ Music Closing Concert | Press release

August 1, 2022.

The information was prepared by Aigars Reinis, music director of Riga Cathedral, Cathedral organist.

Enclosed garden

The Closed Garden

Ainars Shablovskis (duduk)

Ilze Reine (organ)

Vocal ensemble Vox Iubilantis (medieval chants)

Already this Saturday, August 6 pl. 21.00 Riga City Council invites you to the closing concert of the 35th International Organ Music – a night concert, which this time will allow the listener to feel the enchanting atmosphere of Gregorian chorale and medieval chants, organ improvisations and sketches created especially for this concert by Ilze Reine, as well as the sounds of Ainar Šablovski’s rarely played duduk in Latvia. A little meditation and evening light in the vaults of Riga Cathedral – the end of the festival after a rich and varied festival program,

After 11 concerts.

In the center of the Holy Scriptures we find one of the most mysterious books of the Bible: the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs. This poetic work takes us into a symbolic garden full of flowers and fruits, in the center of which we meet a couple – a woman and a man, a bride and a groom. It is an eternal couple wrapped in the power of tenderness and love, whose love is characterized by the powerful phrase “as strong as death is love”. Commentaries from early Christian theologians already emphasize that the reflection of human love is the key to understanding God’s love for the soul. Therefore, the ancient tradition of the Church has fearlessly used this analogy of the Song of Songs to indicate the love between the Creator and his creation. Starting from the 12th century, the Song of Songs gained great popularity among medieval thinkers and also composers, its poetically gorgeous and extremely illustrative language became the inspiration for countless exegetes’ comments, and it was also abundantly played in the melodies of liturgical chants. Over the centuries, monks and mystics in particular contemplated the Song of Solomon in a Marian key. So, for example, the “Enclosed Garden”, described in chapter 4 with exotic images, can be identified with fertility and inviolability, motherhood and virginity, which in turn allowed medieval theologians to identify the prototype of the bride sung by analogy with the image of the Virgin and Mother Mary. This identification appears widely in many Marian liturgical feast chants, where gorgeous unison and early polyphonic compositions clothe the words of the Canticle and their paraphrases. Also in art, in Late Gothic and Early Renaissance paintings, the Madonna is often depicted in a flower garden. Accordingly, the Hortus conclusus can be understood as a symbolic space containing all the virtues of Mary.

Hortus Conclusus concert-meditation invites the listener to look into the mysterious Garden.

Its idea is to meet. Song lyrics and compositions inspired by them, dressed in the ascetic and at the same time surprisingly virtuosic melodies of the Middle Ages, meet with instrumental compositions and improvisations. In Gregorian chorale, as well as in late medieval chants, the word is often sung melismatically, allowing the music to say much more than the words. Also in this concert program, the chants are complemented and played by the organ and the ancient woodwind instrument – duduk. The voices of the organ pipes of the Riga Cathedral sonorously represent the variety of colors, sounds, smells of the exotic garden and the meeting of the symbolic eternal couple in it. Medieval compositions dressed in women’s voices symbolize the prototype of the bride and its analogous identifications, while the oriental sound of the ancient Armenian musical instrument duduk represents the image of the groom. The High Song is not a love story, but a dialogue between lovers. Also in the mysterious garden, we hear dialogues between voices and instruments, unison and polyphony, medieval chants and improvisations.

Supported by VKKF, Latvian Radio, Radio Klasika

Additional information:

Aigars Reinis

Music director of Riga Cathedral, cathedral organist

Riga Cathedral music director, organist

+ 371 28444083, [email protected]

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