Скачать или смотреть NICHOLAS LENS – Flamma Flamma, The Fire Requiem (2 LP / CD / Digital)

Celebration Edition 2024
Re-edited and Re-Mastered to mark the 30st aniversary of the original release in 1994
Listen to and order the album here: https://orcd.co/nicholaslens_flammafl...

Nicholas Lens is a Belgian composer of contemporary music, particularly known for his operas. He wrote the music drama Flamma Flamma - The Fire Requiem as one of his earliest works in 1993.

This brandnew re-release of Flamma Flamma is a celebration edition by the label Intuition Music to mark the 30st aniversary with a remastered and re-edited version of the original album worldwide released in 1994. This 2024 edition will appear on CD but as well for the first time on double vinyl. The composer himself artistically supervised the re-mastering and re-editing.

The score of Flamma Flamma has been used numerous times for the most diverse art events (firework performances among others) and hundreds of dance and ballet creations all over the world. Flamma Flamma for instance was performed live at the opening of the Adelaide Festival in Australia with more than thousand performers for an audience of thirty thousand people.
The tenth track of the album Flamma Flamma (album and track title) was also known as a videoclip (quite rare for a classical release in that period).

‘To me, the one thing that makes life bearable is the knowledge that it will come to an end, because accepting this is the only way to unconditionally and freely enjoy life. It has taken me many long journeys, both physically and mentally, to reach this obvious insight,’ Nicholas Lens wrote, back in 1993.

Nicholas Lens himself gained international fame after the Flamma Flamma release and has become since then a worldwide recognised and established contemporary opera composer, for instance the opera Shell Shock (Royal Opera La Monnaie and Paris) and L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S (Deutsche Grammphon) with Nick Cave, and also for instance Slow Man, At the Gate and Elizabeth Costello with Nobel Prize winner John M. Coetzee etc. At the time Lens composed the work as the first part of the trilogy The Accacha Chronicles as a ritual, strongly influenced by the magic powers of non-European cultures.

Lens: “As the natural quality of primitive death ceremonials often sharply contrasts with the overorganized and therefore spiritually weakened ceremonials of the Western world, Flamma Flamma portrays death as being a natural part of the cosmic life process.”


• Time magazine -- (Catherine Kotschoubey) -- wrote at the time: “This year’s hit is by Belgium’s Nicholas Lens. His work Flamma Flamma is among those compositions of contemporary classic music breaking down the established divisions. With its visceral strength and sustained emotional drive, his work has won a loyal audience and critical favour.”

• “The mixture of Nicholas Lens’ compositions works more successfully than any contemporary composition I have heard in a long time." (Fred Flaxman) -Compact Discoveries-Jefferson monthly USA

Tracks such as "Sumus Vicinae", "Corpus Inimici" or the title track "Flamma Flamma" have even made it as cult classics to some alternative dance floors from Paris to NY and Tokyo. Written for chamber orchestra, mixed choir, and six soloists, the score uses unusual instrumentation like a Japanese koto and as well three natural voices. During the time of creating the score, Lens - still in this tonal period - was heavily influenced by adventurous traveling, ethnic voices, left overs of popmusic structures, and all of this mixed and combined with a dramatic contemporary operatic and unconventional feel that gave the work an most particular unique style that at the time not could be compared to anything else.

The plot seems a mixture of mythology, philosophy and fantasy:
Flammarius, the god of fire, comes to earth with his entourage. To entertain the illustrious company, he comes up with something very special: The immortals are to slip into the skin of mortals in order to experience feelings such as pain, jealousy and fear of death first-hand. They are delighted and Flammarius lights a cigar with satisfaction. He throws the match to the ground, where it - not yet extinguished - ignites a fire the likes of which no mortal has ever experienced before.

copyright: 2024 Intuition a division of Schott Music & Media GmbH

https://www.schott-music.com/de/flamm...

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