Lament

Address

Oslo gate 13,
0192 Oslo

Lament

Description

Welcome to a concert with room for reflection and contemplation in historic surroundings at Oslo Ladegård. November comes with rain and darkness, and few things suit this time of year as well as a little melancholic Baroque music. The French composer Michel Delalande’s work “Leçons de ténèbres”, or lessons in darkness, forms the frame around this concert. Here texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah are used as the starting point for melodies and harmonies that embrace both beauty and pain. In addition to the French laments, two different laments by the Italian composers Barbara Strozzi and Antonia Bembo (pictured) are also performed. Strozzi’s “Lagrime mie” describes unhappy love, while Bembo’s “Lamento della virgine” is about the crucifixion seen through the eyes of the Virgin Mary. Antonia Bembo herself stated that this work was inspired by none other than Barbara Strozzi’s dramatic and passionate songs for solo soprano and basso continuo. About the performers: Yngvild Vivja Haaland Ruud is a harpsichordist and ensemble leader specialising in Baroque and contemporary music. She is trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music (MMus) and the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki). Ruud has a broad concert career as a soloist and chamber musician as well as an ensemble leader, and likes to explore the intersection of historically informed performance practice, new composed music and experimental concert formats. Yngvild V. H. Ruud is passionate about communicating classical music and art experiences to a modern audience. She is co-founder of a number of ensembles, among them Kompani Opera Mobile, which has performed chamber versions of Rameau operas, Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio all over Norway - preferably accompanied by mulled wine or good French wine. Linnéa Sundfær Casserly is a singer and recorder player trained at the Norwegian Academy of Music and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. She currently works as a freelancer with one foot in Oslo and one in Helsinki. She is an eager interpreter of Baroque music, and has, among other things, sung 2nd woman and 1st witch in Dido and Aeneas with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and sung vocal quartet and various small roles in Francesca Caccini’s opera “Alcina” at the Finnish National Opera. In addition she collaborates a great deal with living composers and has given the world premiere of over 100 works as a singer and recorder player. Linnéa is also the soprano soloist on the album “Reconnaissance” with the Helsinki Chamber Choir. The album won the 2024 GRAMMY for best choral performance, and the magazine MusicWeb International wrote, among other things, “A particular attraction is the recurring solos by the marvellously beautiful soprano voice of Linnéa Sundfær Casserly”.