Date/Time
Date(s) - August 1, 2014
8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Location
Roy Barnett Recital Hall
Categories No Categories
Sequentia: Fragments for the End of Time
August 1, 2014 | 8:00pm | Pre-concert chat with host Matthew White at 7:15
Roy Barnett Recital Hall | Map
Sequentia ensemble for mediæval music; Benjamin Bagby, voice & harp; Norbert Rodenkirchen, flute
“Sequentia has always had the knack of connecting the very distant past to the vibrant present.” – Alexander Varty, The Georgia Straight, August 12, 2013
From the time of Christianity’s introduction into Europe until the end of the first millennium, apocalyptic images of the End of Days and the Last Judgement were widespread. Pagan and Christian sources share many characteristics: the terrifying words of female oracles, the massing of armies from below and above, the breakdown of material reality, and the final destruction of the world by fire.
In this programme, Sequentia explores the musical world of these surprising, powerful texts, some of which survive only as fragments: German verses describing the terrible final day, the Old English ‘Lay of the Last Survivor’, which depicts the bleak and lonely end of an unnamed tribe, and a harrowing portrayal of the pagan Ragnarök, when ‘Muspell’s People’ and the armies of Surt and Loki launch their final, deadly assault on the northern European gods.