Opening Concert – In the beginning was ...

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION BY IDA HABBESTAD

Stories about the creation of the world often begin in darkness, in a void. From there, the earth is separated from the waters. – a force, a being, breathes life into the creations

The three world religions around which the festival revolves are united in the story of the beginning. Adam and Eve are the first humans in the world. They eat of the forbidden fruit and commit the first wrongdoing. Their son, Cain, amplifies this evil and takes the life of his own brother. The core challenges of being human, which we encounter whenever we are to live and function together, are established right from the very beginning.

Abraham is the patriarch in both Judaism and Islam. As populations, they have from the very beginning a half-sibling relationship, which is severely tested when extremist leaders use historical material to legitimize abuses of power. And in the midst of all this, new lives continue to arrive.

Nils Henrik Asheim’s «Genesis» explores such a coming-into-being. The festival opens in a simple tone, which slowly changes in color and texture: it gains light, it gains air, it gains rhythm. Other musical elements are added step by step, building toward a cycle that is ultimately absorbed back into the single, original tone.

In Darius Milhaud’s ballet, the world comes into being in roughly the same order as in the Christian tradition. But here the gods who create are three in number; the myth springs from African traditions. In the early 1900s, the Parisian avant-garde was fascinated by such forms of cultural expression. The shapes of African masks inspired Picasso to break with established modes of representation in painting. Jazz opened the way for Milhaud to think in new ways about rhythm and sound.

A hundred years earlier, Felix Mendelssohn was at the beginning of his career. The Octet in E-flat major is regarded as his first mature work. It still sounds youthful, melodically flowing and full of life – a manifesto of the rich possibilities of human creativity.