Super ‘Victimae’

2016d

Klarinet en strijkkwartet

6'30

Voor het Bennewitz Kwartet en Harry-Imre Dijkstra

 

This is the first movement of the Super Suite.
Even though the texts of the originals are absent, I cannot help but being inspired by the ideas that the original melodies in this Suite still carry. Here, the introduction and lyrical refrains in the music are taken from the ‘Asperges me’, the prayer to become cleansed and blessed for the coming ritual. The other, main themes are taken (against liturgical habit, were the two songs are never combined) from the ‘Victimae paschali laudes’, the Easter song (‘sequentia’) that celebrates the sacrifice of the meek one, the Lamb. This song, so widely appreciated that it was adapted to the Protestant Psalm 80. also quite dramatically depicts the search for the dead body that has mysteriously disappeared. The absence of such physical proof dooms us, in a sense, to an uncertain faith in the unseen.