Label: Antarctica
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917736922
Catalog number: AR 069
Releasedate: 08-08-25
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917736922
Releasedate: 08-08-25
- The three pieces, Madrigali, Sonetto XXXI and Coro, take the listener on a journey of serenity, with the voice and piano gradually blending together.
- The central composition Coro is a sound meditation in which De Decker translates his artistic vision into music, with layers of light, air and space slowly being revealed.
- From music to visual art back to music: Modelled on Luciano Berio, George De Decker's Coro unveils a concentrated musical world in which every sound, breath and silence assumes a meaningful form. De Decker created 31 paintings for this project. This album is the soundtrack for that series.
- With great clarity, attention to resonance and a sense of silence as sound, Geert Callaert on piano and Els Van Laethem's voice reveal the layers of De Decker's score.
CORO: inspired by Luciano Berio's 31-song composition of the same name, George De Decker painted a cycle of 31 canvases. The key sentence Berio took as his starting point comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda: ‘Venid a ver la sangre por las calles’ (Come and see the blood in the streets) – a caustic reference to General Pinochet’s seizure of power in Chile in 1973.
For the exhibition of this cycle of paintings, De Decker wrote a composition for female voices. On the soundtrack, he incorporated vocal recordings of Els Van Laethem, Anne Marie Honggokoesoemo and Herlinde Ghekiere. At the request of pianist Geert Callaert, he added a piano part, so that CORO ultimately became a composition for solo piano, with a soundtrack with female voices.CORO is preceded by two new scores in the same sound idiom.
Part I consists of madrigals, in which the vocal parts always dialogue polyphonically – as a ‘coro’ – with the piano. The singer performing here is Els Van Laethem, who has been familiar with both contemporary and Renaissance music for many years. The finale is a ‘new’ madrigal: a vocal part composed by De Decker to a text from Carlo Gesualdo's fifth songbook: ‘S’io non miro non moro’.
The last painting – the outsider of the series – was given a musical counterpart. As a bridge to the CORO cycle, De Decker composed new music for Francesco Petrarch’s Sonetto XXXI.
Text: Guido De Bruyn / Translation: Stephen Smth"
For the exhibition of this cycle of paintings, De Decker wrote a composition for female voices. On the soundtrack, he incorporated vocal recordings of Els Van Laethem, Anne Marie Honggokoesoemo and Herlinde Ghekiere. At the request of pianist Geert Callaert, he added a piano part, so that CORO ultimately became a composition for solo piano, with a soundtrack with female voices.CORO is preceded by two new scores in the same sound idiom.
Part I consists of madrigals, in which the vocal parts always dialogue polyphonically – as a ‘coro’ – with the piano. The singer performing here is Els Van Laethem, who has been familiar with both contemporary and Renaissance music for many years. The finale is a ‘new’ madrigal: a vocal part composed by De Decker to a text from Carlo Gesualdo's fifth songbook: ‘S’io non miro non moro’.
The last painting – the outsider of the series – was given a musical counterpart. As a bridge to the CORO cycle, De Decker composed new music for Francesco Petrarch’s Sonetto XXXI.
Text: Guido De Bruyn / Translation: Stephen Smth"