© Anne Wellmer
Voices echo through the cloister of a monastery as well the crackling sound of gradually spreading flames. When the Inquisition reached Austria in the 13th century, the monastery of the Order of Friars Minor Conventuals was founded in Hainburg on the Danube.
Frozen voices is based on a medieval hymn from the 12th century which is carved in stone in the cloister of the Girona Cathedral (Spain) in an early musical notation. In the Roman Catholic tradition only men and boys are allowed to chant religious music. Contrary to this tradition we hear women singing the hymn here. The electronic manipulation of the song carries us off into the core of the voice itself, which merges into the buzzing of insects and bees and becomes the bearer of an original mystic sound. While voice and word seem to freeze, the sound of the insects is transformed into a vehicle of fire and warmth.
frozen voices lets the silenced voices rise up once again.
Soprano: Mikae Natsuyama
Latin Hymn (12.Jhr.):
Cunctis intere o stat generosior Virgo Martyribus, prodigio novo.
In tantis moriens, non moreris, Parens, Diris fixa doloribus. Amen.
English:
Yet thou with patient mien beneath his cross dost stand,
Nobler in this, I ween, than all the martyr-band:
A thousand deaths, O Queen, upon thy spirit lie,
Yet thou, O marvel! dost not die. Amen.