LITANIES TO THE VIRGIN

Music - Vladimir Martynov
Musical direction — Valentina Georgievskaya
Movement — Maria Shentalinskaya

Several years ago I experienced a sudden wish to write something that would refer us to the medieval, non-author creativity. I wanted to write something resembling a "cento", that is, a literary work wholly composed of quotations, devoid of a single new "author' s" word. Without trying to invent either new themes or new harmonies, I decided to combine the elements of the already existing musical material in the same way the composers of the 12th-13th century were constructing their motets.

Right at that time a female group of the Sirin Ensemble were undergoing their training under Anne Trotier, a well-known specialist in Gregorian pre-notation tradition of singing. They were singing Gregorian psalms, as well as chants of the Old Roman school. The result of this training seemed to be so successful that I decided to write something specially for them.

The name of my work is "Litanies to the Virgin". Litanies are prayers or chants which in Catholic tradition are addressed to the Lord, to the Virgin, or to various saints. Usually they come at the end of vespers. Depending on the specific period of the liturgical cycle, "completorium", or the conclusive part or the liturgy, includes one of the four different antiphones addressed to the Virgin; they use the following canonical texts: "Alma Redemptoris Mater", "Ave Regine caelorum", "Regina caeli", "Salve Regina". Normally the are never performed together. All these four canonical Gregorian antiphones are brought together in the "Litanies to the Virgin", where they constitute the structural foundation of the work .

Antiphones are intermingling together and are used as elements of mathematical and musical combinatorics. The beginning of the "Litanies to the Virgin" presents a search for the genuine intonations of the original antiphone. I would call it the minimalistic search for an appropriate intonation. After that we hear the fragments of the melodies, while in the end, in the finale of the "Litanies to the Virgin", all the four antiphones are performed in their accomplished form.

An approach to space suggested for the "Litanies to the Virgin" will be entirely new. Usually singers would perform such works in front of the audience — standing either on the stage or on the choirs. However, in the course of my work I gradually got more and more interested in the Venetian tradition of antiphones' singing, — the tradition reflected by Andrea Giovanni Gabrielli and other Venetian composers.

The inner space of the cathedral "San Marco" is structured in a very complex way that allows different possibilities to arrange the choirs. Inside this cathedral antiphones were usually sung by two, three or even four choruses. The musical score of the "Litanies to the Virgin" envisages quite an unusual position for the performers: they are meant to stay in four different points in space. In this way they will practically surround the audience, enveloping them with a new, quadrophonical space.Moreover, singers will move in space, so that the spectators will find themselves completely engulfed by the sound.

I do not want to go into more details, since the utmost possible concentration of texts devoted to the Holy Virgin, as well as the proposed space composition speak for themselves.

Vladimir Martynov