Following the example of JS Bach, Sandström has written six motets to the same texts as the old master. The colorful musical language is unmistakably Sandström's own, sometimes requiring virtuosity and always a sense of sound and expression.
Show all Sandström's motets » Johann Sebastian Bach's double-choir motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied is one of the most virtuosic works in choral literature. When I suggested to my friend Sven-David Sandström in the spring of 2003 that he compose a choral work using this Bach motet as a model and dedicate it to Lund's Vokalensemble and myself, I quickly received a positive response. Sandström's Singet dem Herrn, like Bach's motet, is composed in three movements for double choir and with virtuoso final movements. Bach's motets were probably performed with the support of instruments, at least a continuo (cello, double bass, organ), while Sandström's music to the same text is to be sung a cappella.
Movement I in Sandström's setting is extremely demanding. The score indicates a dizzying tempo, completely in accordance with the text content. Long melismas with sixteenth notes, syncopated rhythms, alternating high and low pitches, all symbolizing a jubilation without limits. Movement II, the chorale, invites bel canto singing with its simple, beautiful melody and its rich, expressive, almost romantic harmonies. Movement III is mostly for 16 voices and a circus of sound with the voices in a roller coaster. The ending is characteristic of Sandström. A Hallelujah that is repeated in syncopated rhythm, pianissimo and without ritardando, a subdued praise, perhaps an expression of man's smallness in the universe. Both extreme movements place enormous demands on vocal technique. In order to interpret this choral work in a full way, one must explore how text and music, tempo, structure and symbols, rhetoric and phrasing, dynamics and articulation come together and convey the message. In Sandström's Singet dem Herrn, I hear Bach speaking to our own contemporaries with ecstatic joy that his music lives on in generation after generation.
Ingemar Mansson
