Poul Ruders

glOrIA

Ruders writes: 'gl0rIA' is subtitled: 'a relique for large chorus and 12 brass-instruments. At the same time it is an exercise for chorus because only vowels do occur, or virtually no consonants are heard. The second part of the Missa Ordinarium, the Gloria in Exelcis Deo makes the literary basis of 'g10rIA', but I employ only the vowels, which in their full context form a 'non-language', - fragments of a tradition. A less dim vision of the 'severed body' appears in the center of the piece, where the Domini Fili-section surfaces in its original shape. 'gl0rIA' is a 20th century composer's hommage to the innocent faith of bygone days and a fanfare in honour of Claudio Monteverdi; thus the ever present elaborations of the introduction to the Vespro Della Beate Vergine. Superimposed on the 'torso' of Latin, I wedge in a quotation from the Spanish renaissance poet Gonzalo de Berceo's 'Duelo de la Virgen', a surrealistic Lamento, in which the Jews, sent by Pilate to stand guard at the tomb of Christ, mock and ridicule Maria, Jesu mother. Thus a shadow has been cast over the jubilant religious appraisal of the past, which today's knowledge of atrocities and enormities engineered by Mankind, has - alas - made so hard to repeat.