Thursday 13 December 2018

Francis Poulenc's beautiful and cheerful choral work Gloria with crowd favorite Marita Sølberg as soloist.

Poulenc's choral work Gloria has had great appeal ever since it was first performed in 1959. The music is pious and reflects the composer's faith at the same time that, typically for Poulenc, it is colored by merry joy and humour. "When I wrote Gloria, said Poulenc, I thought of Gozzoli's frescoes where the angels reach out their tongues, as well as of some serious Benedictine monks whom I once saw deeply engaged in playing football".

Soloist in Gloria, Marita Sølberg, has been a favorite of both audiences and critics ever since she won the Queen Sonja International Music Competition in 2001.

"What a voice! Marita Sølberg's soprano contains both the lyrical and the dramatic", Dagbladet