Cité musicale - Metz

Les Métaboles and Léo Warynski shine the spotlight on the repertoire for multiple choirs. The principle of writing separate choirs experienced its Baroque golden age under the vaults of the Sistine Chapel – witness Allegri’s Miserere for two choirs, the sacred works of Marc-Antoine Charpentier, who admired these polyphonies during his trip to Italy, or Orazio Benevolo’s Missa tu es petrus, for four choirs, recently resurrected by Les Métaboles. Composed on the same principle of spatialization, Love by Juta Pranulyte will echo them.

Is there any prayer sweeter and more sublime than Fauré's Requiem, is there any melody more sweet than Jean Racine's Cantique? In Les Djinns, based on Victor Hugo’s virtuoso poem, the composer on the contrary unleashes the most frightening hordes. But it is indeed the most tender Fauré that we find in the two other pieces: the melancholy Pavane, to which the dandy Robert de Montesquiou, cousin of the dedicatee, offered delicately old-fashioned verses, and the concert suite taken from the incidental music for Pelléas et Mélisande, the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, with the famous “Sicilienne”.

Les Métaboles and the cellist Marc Coppey, offer a program under the sign of metamorphosis. Some works are transformed, such as a Chaconne by Bach and Agnus Dei by Barber, transcribed for cello and choir. Others translate the metamorphosis musically, such as the eponymous work by Philippe Hersant inspired by the four seasons or the creation of the Japanese composer Noriko Baba. The ultimate change of state, that of passing from life to death, is explored in John Tavener's Svyati.

The Canadian composer Raymond Murray Schafer has developed in his music a most singular philosophical approach, his vocal works seeking to establish a spiritual link with Nature, by creating real soundscapes, drawing inspiration for this from Native American culture. The vocal ensemble Les Métaboles excels in the interpretation of this metaphysical repertoire.

Completed by a piece by Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, this concert is set in motion by choreographer Éric Oberdorff, assuring the public of an extraordinary mystical experience.

Informations and reservations here

In 1994, Messe un jour ordinaire crossed the vehement and shattering words of mass with that, individual and derisory, of Laurence, a young drug addict who appeared in a documentary by Jean-Michel Carré. 20 years later, Bernard Cavanna rewrites it to reinforce the presence of voice and choir.

Everything sings at Ravel's: the strings of Daphnis and Chloé, the piano from Jeux d'eau or the whirlwind of fantastic characters from L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. However, his work for a cappella choir is reduced to the twirling but very short Three Songs. Never mind ! Didn't Ravel himself transcribe, here for piano, there for orchestra, a good part of his catalog? Here is Ma mère d'Oye, Miroirs, Scheherazade offered to the virtuosity and playfulness of the singers of the Métaboles - and in creation, the transcriptions of the Bolero and Pavane pour une infante défunte

Reservation here

Behind Brahms the Titan, ambitious heir to Beethoven and Schumann, stands the lover of the voice, the complicit observer of Viennese customs. This is the one who composes waltzes for four hands piano and vocal ensemble, intended for amateurs. Love songs to the rhythm of dance, these Liebeslieder Walzer alternately express desire, nostalgia, sorrow, and fun in the dialogue of hearts. To this emblematic collection, Léo Warynski joins several gems of Brahmsian vocal art, in which the colors of his Metaboles shine.

Les Métaboles
Yoan Héreau et Edoardo Torbianelli, piano
Léo Warynski, musical direction

The opening concert for the 2021-2022 season highlights the masterpieces of great French artists, Camille Saint-Saens, Reynaldo Hahn and Claude Debussy. To these composers is added Édith Canat de Chizy with Apocalypsis, a world creation for choir and orchestra.

This powerful work, commissioned to mark the 800th anniversary of Metz Cathedral, will resonate with force in the Great Hall of the Arsenal.