Or (Lumière)

Description

For her new recording titled "Or" (light), cellist Sonia Wieder Atherton conceived a narrative in two stages, "like freeze-frames, like incursions into time": first, Couperin's Leçons de ténèbres or the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah. The prophecies represent the time before. Before destruction and tears: "you hear the prophet's lament, but the possibility that it may not happen still exists." Then comes "our time": "with its dramatic force, Vivaldi confronts us with our present. He says, 'This is now.'" Sonia selected several opera excerpts as well as two violin concertos. She handled the transcriptions of most pieces in this program, for solo cello or for two cellos, two voices she performs herself. She also created bridges to other lights, those of Mahut's percussion and Marius Atherton's electric guitar and MS20 synthesizer.