I mean, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and everything. In every concert’s repertoire, there is at least one piece that truly connects with me on an emotional or spiritual level, or both. Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have made me flee away.Today, we share with you an article written by Rachel Robison, a member and soloist of the ACC, concerning the work Northern Lights by Ola Gjeilo, which will be featured on our October 8 “Star-Made Shadows” concert… Thou art beautiful, O my love, sweet and comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army set in array. Averte oculos tuos a me quia ipsi me avolare fecerunt. Pulchra es amica mea, suavis et decora sicut Jerusalem, terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata.
It is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena I’ve ever witnessed, and has such a powerful, electric quality that must have been both mesmerizing and terrifying to people in the past, when no one knew what it was and when much superstition was attached to these experiences.
Looking out from an attic window one Christmas close to Oslo, over a wintry lake under the stars, I was thinking about how this ‘terrible’ beauty is so profoundly reflected in the northern lights, or aurora borealis, which, having grown up in the southern part of the country, I have only seen once or twice in my life. About a ‘terrible’, powerful beauty, although the music is quite serene on the surface. Most of all, this piece and its text is about beauty. Note that in the preparation for the premiere and the recording, Ola encouraged us to take the tempo as written and not to let it get bogged down.
This is a robust and demanding work, harmonically challenging and requiring strength and flexibility in equal measure. The sound recording was originally available on iTunes as a single track, and as of October 2015 is also included in Elektra’s 13th CD: “Still”.
Ola’s “Northern Lights”, well-known in its original SATB setting, was written for Elektra in 2014. Your browser does not support the audio element.
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