Estimated duration

2 h

Organizer

Taideyliopiston Sibelius-Akatemia

Music by Moses Pergament

The Finnish-born composer Moses Pergament wrote perhaps his most personal music for voice as well as for his own instrument, the violin. Eternally etched into his memory were his childhood visits to the Helsinki synagogue, as well as the musical impressions he absorbed there, which became a lifelong source of inspiration in his creative work. This concert programme, consisting of violin works and solo songs in Yiddish, Swedish, German, Italian and Danish, as well as in a phonetic nonsense-language, traces a broad arc through Pergament’s rich and highly varied output.

Deeply sensitive to text, Pergament allows each poem to generate its own musical world: at times declamatory and speech-like, at others restrained and lyrical, or driven by rhythm and colour. The violin, too, often assumes a vocal role, lending even the instrumental works an almost cantorial quality. In these works emerges a composer who moves freely between cultures, languages and musical idioms while maintaining a distinctive voice, representing a forgotten strand of Nordic–Jewish cultural heritage.

Martin Malmgren, piano
Tuuli Lindeberg, soprano
Olga Heikkilä, soprano
Sebastian Silén, violin