Ġgantija II
Ars Vitae Ensemble
St James’s Cavalier Music Room

That the Ġgantija temple complex is a marvel of human effort is an undisputed fact. The place casts a kind of spell on whoever visits it. For that matter, so do the major megalithic temples of our Neolithic period.

It is very gratifying that among our artists there is a significant core that finds inspiration in such places. Ġgantija’s spell did not fail to draw to it the combined effort of a number of artists like composer Mariella Cassar Cordina and artist Victor Agius who founded Ars Vitae. They rallied musicians like pianists Gisèle Grima and Tricia Dawn Williams, cellist Simon Abdilla Joslin and Alistair Attard (synthesiser) and narrator Sharon Bezzina who recited Immanuel Mifsud’s powerful lyrics in putting on Ġgantija II.

This was the conclusion of this highly-imaginative project. Ġgantija I was performed in situ last year with a slightly different instrumental line-up and which unfortunately I missed as I was away. Judging by the very strong effect Ġgantija II had on me, I could only dare imagine how much better it could have been were I to follow both events in Gozo.

The project’s curator, Vince Briffa, spoke briefly at the very beginning, followed by a deeper and longer introductory address by John Galea. Mifsud is a wordsmith par excellence and this was evident when he recited the text of Ġgantija I and II. The words were like music with their own cadence and inflections, and evoked a mysterious awe and awareness of mighty energy those hallowed stones project.

Cassar Cordina, who is growing in stature as one of these islands’ handful of lady composers, cast her instrumental forces in a way that provided an electro-acoustic process with the two pianists performing four-hands. The stark jaggedness of the music was very often ostinato. This, combined with the restless, agitated cello arpeggi and eerie synthesiser, evoked a particularly magical atmosphere which was unfortunately often interrupted by the continuous clicking of a camera.

However, being an integral element of this work and crowning it all with meaning was the text of Ġgantija II. This was superbly narrated by Bezzina who created another kind of music: the vocal complementing the instrumental elements. There were some great climaxes in which one could easily imagine the narrator as some kind of Sibyl enmeshed in a trance. Yes, Maltese is truly beautiful when crafted, recited and narrated in such a way.

Mifsud is a wordsmith par excellence and this was evident when he recited the text of Ġgantija I and II

After the performance one could view Agius’s visual contribution to the project. He makes use of a variety of different types of soil and other unusual materials such as twigs and roots which he incorporates into panels.

These are indicative of the sacredness of Mother Earth. He presents the matter as a pure form, as he says “constructed with the least possible human intervention”.

The works are fine enough and inventive; when distributed around the temple complex last year, they must have made quite an impact.

The exhibition highlights the artist’s preoccupation with negative cultural space of both industrial and natural objects. He says that this was further developed following the performance with installations of Ġgantija I last year:

“While the cast objects challenged the temple site through their out-of-context display, the negative spaces or casts in this exhibition interrelate visually with the gallery space. Here the moulds do not form part of a casting process of an object but considered to be the final work. The terracotta pieces are negative skins formed through the pressing slabs of clay on a number of megaliths found in Gozo”.

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