DESPITE THE SNOW

This hour-long recital for choir and piano begins in the grip of winter with Francis Poulenc Un soir de neige – an a cappella chamber cantata for six voices on texts by Paul Éluard, written at Christmas in 1944, during another winter of occupation in France. From there, another “choral-cycle” by Morten Lauridsen and his Mid-Winter Songs – a deeply expressive and emotional setting of texts by Robert Graves for choir and piano. The prayerful final movement Intercession in Late October is a reluctant return to the cold, and the music has a sense of being unresolved.

A moment of quiet meditation follows with the piano piece Baltā ainava by Pēteris Vasks. Only two themes are heard: everything is white, and it signals a new beginning.

Even in the dead of the coldest of clear nights, we still marvel at the beauty of the stars. Eriks Ešenvalds’ luminous setting of…