Jaakko Mäntyjärvi: Come Away, Death

Aarhus Barokkor (Aarhus Baroque Choir)
August 2011
Our first go at contemporary music. As an early music choir, this is not something we are going to do on a regular basis, but based on this - maybe we should try it once in a while.

[@JamesEis]

Lovely setting (like a cross between Gesualdo and the Vaughan Williams Shakespeare songs), and beautifully sung! Immaculate intonation. Well done.

[@guscairns1]

It's also an incredibly clever piece harmonically. He keep modulating downwards all the time, flattening chords, turning expected major chords into unexpected minor ones, creating descending chromatic scales, all to express droopiness and mourning.

[@hyramesshiramess1035]

I would echo everything thing JamesEis said in his remarkably sensitive, perceptive post below. This is exquisitely beautiful work in every regard. A joy to find something gentle, subtle, full of fine detail. There's a purity about it that's most appealing in this strident, bombastic, tragically vulgar peasantine age.