Missing piece of Maltese sacred music
The New Choral Singers do not need my praise for their professional rendering every time a choral concert features their participation. Last Friday’s performance of sacred music at St John’s Co-Cathedral strengthened this reputation with praise but a...
The New Choral Singers do not need my praise for their professional rendering every time a choral concert features their participation. Last Friday’s performance of sacred music at St John’s Co-Cathedral strengthened this reputation with praise but a discordant note could have been avoided in their repertoire.
No beating about the bush, while the Kammerkoret Nesodden/Frogn, the Norwegian choir who shared the evening’s concert, listed with pride their compatriot’s works including Edward Grieg’s, our Maltese choir failed to trace a token sacred music piece from our own composers.
It would have been a befitting tribute to our own Giuseppe Caruana’s hymns exalted by Dun Karm Psaila’s immortal religious poetry. A combined contribution to Mro Caruana and our national poet in the very month commemorating Dun Karm’s demise 50 years ago was ardently awaited. Perhaps the familiar hymn Nadurawk Ja Ħobż tas-Sema, composed by Mro Caruana in 1913, or L-Innu ta’ Filgħaxija for a laudable conclusion to the concert had never crossed the organisers’ mind.
The Norwegian choir’s selection boasting of national tunes was, in my opinion, a mild rebuke pointing towards Maltese sacred music, which was conspicuous by its absence. Must we remain foreigners in this “fair land” of ours?!