Choir Concert: Figure humaine

The 2024 Hamburg International Music Festival is dedicated to Sofia Gubaidulina, one of the leading composers of the modern age. She was awarded the Praemium Imperiale art prize in 1998, and the Polar Music Prize in 2002. The work of the Russian-Tatar composer, who has been living near Hamburg for decades, is almost always inspired by poetry. She draws on a diverse range of sources, from the ancient Egyptians to contemporary poets. In 1997, Gubaidulina set one of the earliest pieces of Italian literature – Saint Francis of Assisi’s 13th century »Canticle of the Sun«, a song of praise for the creation – to music, for the unusual combination of cello, choir and percussion. Chorwerk Ruhr, one of Germany’s best choirs, is coming to Hamburg to perform the piece, and the solo part is played by the French star cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. Francis Poulenc’s 1943 choral work »Figure humaine« follows in the second half of the concert. The polyphonic cantata, which is based on a poem by Paul Éluard, is pervaded by human tragedies of violence and hate, and opens into an ode to freedom.