About the composer
Olav Anton Thommessen was born in 1946, but lived in the USA from 1958 to 1969,
where he was taught by Bernard Heiden and Iannis Xenakis at the Indiana School
of Music. He studied one year at the Warsaw Music Conservatory, followed by a
yaer at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Utrecht. He is now assistant professor
at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. Thommessen is the son of a diplomat,
and that has provided him with a highly international background. It is
reflected in his music, where modernist elements merge with traits from
non-European music. An almost late Romantic style charaterizes Thommessen 's
earliest works, but gradually he has developped a more modern language with
great dynamic contrasts, a strong rhythmic vitality and volcanic eruptions of
sound.
About the Stabat Mater Speciosa
| Date | 1977 |
| Performers | Mixed choir |
| Length | 4.44 minutes |
| Particulars | The Stabat Mater Speciosa was commissioned by Ny Musikk (the Norwegian branche of ISCM (International Society for Comtemporary Music) in 1977 for the Oslo Youth Choir. The work treats the vowels of the hymne as sound units, whereas the consonants are given a percussive function. The work is build on a characteristic type of scale which is gradually tranformed into a chord. The sound that results opens and closes like a fan. |
| Textual variations | Only the first two stanzas of the Stabat Mater Speciosa have been used. |
| CD | Aurora Contemporary NCD-B 4940 |
| About this CD | I bought the cd in a recordshop in the Netherlands. |
| Choir | Oslo Youth Choir |
| Conductor | Jor Rormark |
| Other works | Olav Anton Thommessen: Upside-Down, Barbaresk John Persen: Orchestral piece II, CSV, 7'56" |
| Added | June 2007 - THOM-01 (217) |
E-mail:
stabatmater@dds.nl