Bernat Vivancos touches the sky in Peralada

Memorable night at the Peralada Easter Festival, the day after the opening concert, with the absolute premiere of the Responsories of Holy Week by Bernat Vivancos: a piece for the heart a cappella, written for six voices, which revisits from the present the Christian tradition of the Lessons of Darkness, typical of the Renaissance.

The Barcelona composer's revision is neither a contemporary stridency nor an artificial oddity, but rather, starting from and drawing inspiration from the heritage of the past, he constructs an extremely modern polyphonic lamentation that is at the same time respectful of history. Responsories, divided into three tripartite parts The lines that follow one another as the candles of the tenebrarium are extinguished are pure, transparent, and restrained, almost timeless, with a deeply felt religious sentiment that transcends any doctrine. The writing is extremely vertical: with chords and harmonies sustained over time that the heart modulates and resolves as a whole, with dynamics that amplify and silence the intensity, without the need for counterpoint or melodic or rhythmic dialogue, since the dramatic tension of the entire piece is admirably modeled.

In this miraculous treatment of choral polyphony, the mastery of Tomás Luis de Victoria resonates unequivocally, but also the modal choreography of Gregorian chant, especially in the passages for solo quartet, which are more melodic than the rest. In Vivancos's natural and coherent evolution toward more contemporary languages, one can also feel the seed of Nordic spirituality, ethereal and mystical, and even the texture of the harmonic progressions in Hans Zimmer's soundtracks.

And a special mention must be made of the stunning performance of the Heart of Latvian Radio, conducted by Sigvards Klava, who was absolutely stunning: precise, decisive, surgical, and resonant like a six-voice organ, infallible in its transmission and without any hesitation in its extremely demanding tuning. Domino Grave, with the stage in darkness after extinguishing the last candle, playing a concluding cadence in D sharp major, very serious and culminating, which left the church silent for a few seconds before the final ovation.