Oslo Circles & Mari Askvik: Echoes of the Reformation

Address

Akersbakken 32,
0172 Oslo

Oslo Circles & Mari Askvik: Echoes of the Reformation

Description

THE SOUND OF THE REFORMATION Sunday, 25 October 2026, at 19.00 Gamle Aker kirke Mari Askvik, mezzo-soprano Oslo Circles Astrid Kirschner, artistic direction/baroque violin Karolina Radziej, baroque violin Gunnar Hauge, viola da gamba/baroque cello Karl Nyhlin, theorbo Mariangiola Martello, chest organ German 1600s baroque music by Buxtehude, Rosenmüller, Schütz, Meder, Becker - and Norwegian folk music. About the programme: In this programme two musical worlds meet that spring from the same path after the Reformation, but which have developed along widely different tracks: the German Lutheran art music tradition after the Reformation and the Norwegian, orally transmitted folk hymn tune. The critically acclaimed baroque ensemble Oslo Circles and the mezzo-soprano Mari Askvik explore how the Lutheran chorale - one of the Reformation's most important musical tools - was shaped, reshaped and carried on in encounter with Norwegian song traditions. With the Reformation, congregational singing was given a new and central role, and the German chorale became a load-bearing element of church life across large parts of Northern Europe. The first hymnal to reach Norway was Hans Thomissøn's Den danske salmebog from 1569, which for a long time was the only permitted hymnal in Denmark-Norway. The book contained a large number of German hymns, translated and adapted for Norwegian conditions. Nevertheless, the conditions for musical practice in Norway were entirely different from those in the great German church centres: the lack of organs and professional church musicians meant that responsibility for the singing often lay with the sexton and the priest - and not least with the congregation itself. The result was a rich and varied hymn tradition in which the melodies in many cases broke away from their German models. In some places one can still make out the contours of the original chorale melody; in others the hymn has acquired an entirely new melodic life, shaped by local singing ideals, speech rhythm and oral transmission. As the programme's common thread, well-known German church chorales are presented as they sound in works by central composers from the period after the Reformation, among them Heinrich Schütz, Johann Rosenmüller and Dietrich Buxtehude. In parallel, Mari Askvik leads these chorales back to Norway through folk tune variants preserved in archives and oral tradition - often little known, but musically and historically exceptionally valuable sources. Askvik's arrangements leave room for improvisatory elements that are central both to baroque performance practice and to Norwegian folk music. In this way both the kinship and the distance between the two traditions become clearly visible: the notated, polyphonic development in Germany and the free, ornamented and locally rooted singing tradition in Norway. The programme is supplemented by instrumental and solo works from the same period. Taken together, the concert gives a living picture of how the musical legacy of the Reformation has crossed borders, changed form and gained new life - from the churches of Northern Germany to the rural communities of Norway. The critically acclaimed baroque ensemble Oslo Circles plays on period instruments, based on historically informed performance practice. The mezzo-soprano Mari Askvik is both a concert singer with baroque music as a speciality, and also one of Norway's leading singers within the folk music tradition; she is particularly recognised for her artistic work at the intersection of folk music and European art music heritage. The concert is supported by Kulturdirektoratet.