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CORO

Geert Callaert

CORO: inspired by Luciano Berio's composition of the same name consisting of 31 songs, George De Decker painted a cycle of 31 canvases. The key phrase that Berio used as a starting point comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda: 'Venid a ver la sangre por las calles' (Come and see the blood in the streets) – a biting reference to General Pinochet's seizure of power in Chile in 1973. For the exhibition of this painting cycle, De Decker wrote a composition for female voices. On the soundtrack, he incorporated vocal recordings by Els Van Laethem, Anne Marie Honggokoesoemo and Herlinde Ghekiere. At the request of pianist Geert Callaert, he added a piano part, making CORO ultimately a composition for solo piano, with a soundtrack featuring female voices. CORO is preceded by two new scores in the same sound idiom. Part I consists of madrigals, in which the vocal parts always dialogue polyphonically – as a 'coro' – with the piano. The singer performing here is Els Van Laethem, who has long been familiar with both contemporary and Renaissance music. The finale is a 'new' madrigal: a vocal part composed by De Decker to a text from Carlo Gesualdo's fifth songbook: 'S'io non miro non moro'. The last painting – the outsider in the series – received a musical counterpart. As a bridge to the CORO cycle, De Decker composed new music for Francesco Petrarca's Sonetto XXXI.

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