Annual List of Works : Music Information Centre Norway (Musikkinformasjonssenteret, MIC)
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Title
Mon Dieu, mon adoré
Composer
Lasse Thoresen (1949, Norwegian)
Instrumentation
Six-part mixed choir
Year of composition
1995
Duration
6 minutes
Place of premiere performance
Bergen International Festival, Håkonshallen, Bergen
Date of premiere performance
(1995-05-25)
Performers
Oslo Philharmonic Chamber Choir, cond. Stefan Sköld
Score
Publisher: Pizzicato Verlag - Albisstrasse 57, CH-8134 ADLISWIL, Switzerland
URL: http://www.pizzicato.ch
E-mail: info@pizzicato.ch
Edition-No.: PVH 826
Price: 10 € + postage and handling
Recording
Record company: Simax, c/o Grappa Musikkforlag, Akersgt. 7, NO-0158 OSLO, Norway
URL: http://www.simax.no/
E-mail: info@grappa.no
Edition-No.: Simax PSC 1130
Performers: The Norwegian Soloists Choir, Cond: Grete Pedersen
Price: 16 € + postage and handling
Motivation
Lasse Thoresen has manifested himself as one of Norway’s foremost composers of vocal and instrumental music. He is known for his use of unusual means of expression in his vocal music, such as micro tonality inspired by Norwegian and Oriental folk music, cattle call, and Mongolian overtone singing. Mon Dieu, mon adoré employs none of these elements, but is in its simplicity one of the finest pieces of recent Norwegian choral music. By utilising cluster-like timbres and sudden dynamic changes as the only contrast in an otherwise calm movement, Thoresen manages to conjure up an atmosphere of profound religious belief and intensity.
Programme note
In 1971, Lasse Thoresen converted to the Bahá’í religion, which with its Arabian origins and its emphasis on the spiritual aspects of music, reinforced Thoresen’s interest in non-European music traditions. The music of Olivier Messiaen, for example, with its Oriental sounds and structures and firm religious fundament, has been a most important source of inspiration. Lasse Thoresen has finally been able to fulfil an old dream - to create a work of vocal music based on texts from the holy Bahá’í scriptures. In the piece From the Sweet-Scented Streams of Eternity, the choir embracing the audience with peaceful, meditative music reminiscent of the Gregorian tradition.
Mon Dieu, mon adore is the third song of this collection. French music has been one of Lasse Thoresen’s main sources of inspiration. This six-part choral composition, with its strikingly homogenous and tranquil atmosphere, owes much to the traditions of French music, both as regards form and technique. It was therefore natural to use the French translation of the text.
Composer biography
Lasse Thoresen (b. 1949) is professor of composition at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. He received a graduate degree in composition in 1972 from the Oslo Music Conservatory, where he studied under Finn Mortensen. After that he studied electrophony and composition under Werner Kaegi at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Lasse Thoresen has been teaching electrophony, sonology and composition at the Norwegian State Academy of Music since 1975.
Lasse Thoresen's earliest compositions reveal the influence of his studies in electrophony. He has been commissioned to write a large number of works, several of which have achieved wide recognition, such as The Garden, written for the inauguration of the chamber-music auditorium of the Oslo Concert Hall, The Sun of Justice, commissioned by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Violin Concerto, commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic, and Bird of the Heart, written for the Oslo Trio. In 1981 he received the Norwegian Society of Composers' Work of the Year award for Stages of the Inner Dialogue for piano. This was followed by the Critics' Award in 1987 for Qudrat, a work for synthesizer and percussion. He received the Lindeman award for his work as a composer the same year.
Influenced by Norwegian folk music, French spectral music and Harry Partch's tonal system Just Intonation, Lasse Thoresen has been working on microtonality since 1985. Les trois régénérations (1986) - commissioned by Radio France/France Musique - was the first of his works to make use of models derived from folk music. Thus he was the first Norwegian composer to integrate the non-tempered intervals of folk music into art music. The work Thus (1990) was composed for an ensemble that employs Harry Partch's tonal system, while Illuminations (1986) and AbUno (1992) reveal the influence of spectral music. Lasse Thoresen received the Work of the Year award for the latter in 1993.
Lasse Thoresen's poetic titles bear witness to his commitment to the Báha'í Faith. Inspired by the holy scriptures of the religion he has composed works like Carmel Eulogies (1994) for the 75th anniversary of Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the large choral work From the Sweet-Scented Streams of Eternity (1995). In 1997 he wrote the symphonic poem Emergence - Luohti boaðe, inspired by Sámi traditional sining "joik", for the Oslo Philharmonic's tour to Athens and Vienna. In 1998 he wrote, on commission from the Warsaw Autumn, the cantata Fire and Light for two folk singers, instrumental ensemble and choir.
He himself claims that it is the religious perspective that has motivated him to express himself through music. In the composer's own words: "Music is not just music...for me the main purpose of music is to express human ideas and emotions. It should not merely be an exposition on the potential of sound, - it should use this potential to express the human condition."