Wisdom and Folly and other Choral Works

"Music full of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic interest"
(MusicWeb Dec 2005)

It would be hard to find a composer and conductor better versed in vocal music than Bo Holten. He has worked with several of the best choirs and vocal ensembles in Europe and founded two vocal groups himself - Ars Nova and Musica Ficta. His œuvre includes no fewer than five operas. Through his conducting and composition he has come across many different ways of ensemble singing and many types of voice production. The breadth of his experience is apparent in the diversity of techniques explored in these hauntingly original works, all but one dating from the last twelve years.

In his native Denmark Bo Holten is well known both as a conductor and composer. He has an international reputation as a leading specialist in early music, especially in vocal polyphony. He has been a regular guest conductor with many internationally renowned ensembles, including the BBC Singers, with whom he works on a regular basis. His output contains over 100 works including five operas, two symphonies, four concertos and two musicals as well as songs, chamber music and many film and TV scores.

All works here receive their premiere recording (First Snow here recorded for the first time sung in Icelandic, the poet's native language.)

All three texts for Wisdom and Folly (1993) come from the Old Testament.The first, from the Book of Proverbs, describes different animals and their strange habits. The whole thing has an air of the grotesque, and it is hard to understand what it all really means. The second is one of the loveliest passages from the Song of Songs, set as a long soprano solo describing sensual love. The third is from the Lamentations, describing the terrible evils of war and devastation. The Psalm 104 (2002) and Ego flos Campi (2001) are rather straightforward madragalian settings of the biblical texts. The Latin piece features truly polyphonic music whereas the psalm is more homophonic and dramatic. Ebbe Skammelsøn tells the story of one of the most famous characters of Danish folklore, whose brother steals his girlfriend while he is away serving his king. As befits the ethos of the time, Ebbe's revenge is bloody and cruel. Bo Holten's work is based on the tune and plot of the mediaeval Danish folksong and treats the material in an almost operatic way, thus creating what could be called a dramatic scene for several soloists and choir. The texts for First Snow (1996) are by the Icelandic /Canadian poet Stephan G. Stephansson. The first movement depicts the first snowfall, and how the snow then melts, and the water evaporates and drifts upwards, where it again turns into snow. The second movement depicts an immutable granite mountain, with soloists who in a more fragmented style describe the fleeting energies of weather and flora unable to overwhelm the soaring peak. The text for Triumf att finnas till (Triumph to exist) (1995) was written by the Nietzsche-influenced poet Edith Södergran. In music that is almost Delian Holten has captured the poet's ecstatic description of standing alone under the sun, being part of the cosmos, and feeling eternity flowing through the veins.