as written for choir, soloists and symphony orchestra.

It is a complex composition that has been in the making for several years.

I chose the text from the book of Song of Songs from the Bible in the Latin Vulgata translation as the text for it, although this work is also available in its entirety in the Ukrainian version. It was performed once in Latin (which I sent you).

The Christian tradition, in particular in Origen's allegorical interpretation, calls the Song of Songs the pinnacle of all the songs from the Old Testament, starting with the songs of Moses, Isaiah, Habakkuk, Jonah and Daniel, and ending with the victory song of King David. All these songs are like a ladder on which a Christian climbs to the top of his life to sing that most beautiful song - the song of songs. In the interpretation of Christian authors, the Bride and Groom are no longer God and Israel, but Christ and the Church. The parallel Church - human soul, or Church - Virgin Mary, gave rise to a very large literary heritage of Christian mystics, who considered the stages of spiritual life, the relationship of a human person with the Lord, as stages of a relationship of love, a very close connection and unity that is most fully realised in the Eucharistic communion.

The book ‘Song of Songs’ has 8 chapters, but I divided the oratorio into 7 parts, taking from each chapter of the biblical text the main passages that resonated with me the most and fit the overall concept.

My oratorio is written more in classical harmony, with a touch of more modern harmony. I did this deliberately so that the music could be understood by the listener (I don't know if I succeeded).

1 Movement Osculetur me - Let him kiss me -

The image of a lavish royal wedding in which the Bride is surprised to be brought into the royal chambers, a simple girl, accompanied by a lavish cortege that praises her beauty and the love of her Groom. She cries out: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. Pull me along, let's go! The king has brought me into his chambers. I am black, but I am beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the settlements of Kedar, like the tents of Solomon; do not look at me because I am roasted, because the sun has discoloured me (...)"

To depict the splendour of an oriental royal wedding, I decided to give the orchestra a lot of fanfare, characteristic melodic turns and a rhythmic pulsation that is not typical of European music. The harmony there is mostly tonal, or modal, altered, with modulations, sometimes enharmonic modulations and key substitutions. The large introductory section, where the choral mormorando acts as one of the orchestra's instruments, is constructed as a repeated ostinato in different voices, as an imitation of the polyphonic canon. The Bride's solo refers us to a melody close to the Gregorian chorale, or the music of Hildegard von Bingen. It turns into a choral refrain, also sung in an octave (an allusion to the medieval chorale), but against the background of a modern rhythmic pulsation and turns into quarto-quintal harmonies, ending in a cluster. This happens three times, with a modified climax.

2 Part Flos Campi - Wildflower -

This is the name of the Bridegroom's beloved. In this part, the Bride and Groom show their surprise at each other, admire each other in return. This is an image of paradise harmony and happiness from mutual giving. The Bridegroom asks the daughters of Jerusalem not to wake his beloved until she wants to, and the Bride speaks: "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me".

To convey the heavenly atmosphere, I chose the Lydian mode as a basis. There, the construction of the form is song-like: the soloists' parts are intertwined with the choral refrain, although the soloists' parts are different, especially the Bridegroom's part is more recitative and Gregorian. The chorus has a lot of divisi, while the orchestra often has a cluster or polytonal chords. In the orchestra, I tried to create the impression of spatiality through a special combination of woodwinds and strings with numerous divisi.

3 Movement Vox.

This is the awakening of spring, which is reminiscent of the original paradise, the Garden of Eden. The Bride is also awakening, listening to the footsteps of her Beloved as he arrives. She equates him to a deer on the mountain tops. And he speaks to her:  "Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come! Look, the winter is over, the rain has passed and disappeared! Flowers have appeared on the earth!" The celebration of spring turns into a rapid dance, a celebration of love and life. But at the end of the dance, dusk falls and the Bride speaks:  "Until the day is gone and the twilight is falling, return, my beloved, like a chamois (...) to the mountain".

In the introduction to the third movement, I tried to convey the painting of the landscape with the orchestra. To do this, I used various orchestral techniques: flagellation, con legno for the strings, frillato for the flute, and aleatoric techniques. All this then takes on the features of a more classical harmony, based on the Lydian mode and a three-part rhythm, which at first seems to come from afar, intensifies. And then the tempo begins to pick up. The dialogue between the Bride and Groom turns into a dance chorus - a refrain. Later, this refrain changes into a completely different construction: rhythmic shifts and melodic motifs taken from Slavic folk music (tied to songs in the Slavic spring cycle) and using polytonality. The final choral culmination, with its accelerated tempo and tonal modulations, is meant to create the impression of frantic oblivion in dance. The movement ends with a solo monologue by the Bride, with tonal transitions.

4 Part of Tota Pulchra - All You Are Beautiful -

This is a duet of the Bride and Groom, which uses the symbolism of Lebanon (mountains covered with cedar forest) and a garden, - these are symbols of female virginity and innocence, so often the comparison ‘Closed Garden’ is applied to the Virgin Mary. The garden (vineyard) and maiden forest were also symbols of the chosen people and the Church.

The central movement is based on a dialogue between the soloists. The size of the orchestra is reduced to create a more intimate, chamber-like atmosphere). The Bridegroom begins his melody with a reference to church singing, which is answered by an English horn against the background of a quiet pulsation of strings. The soloist's melody develops, while the male chorus enters as a background, whose octave part again refers more to medieval aesthetics. As a response to the Bridegroom's remark, the Bride begins with an identical melody, but develops it into a polyrhythmic semi-refrain against the background of the full choir. The climax is reached through several unprepared modulations. At the end, the voices of the Bride and Groom merge into one.

5 Part Revertere - Come back!

This describes a painful loss. The test that the love of the Bride is put to in the absence of the Bridegroom. The parallel with the crucifixion of the Saviour is the moment of God's ‘absence’ and the great test of faith for his beloved. The Bride loses her Beloved and goes in search of him in the middle of the night. There, she is captured by the guards and painfully beaten. At the end there is a dialogue between the choir and the Bride. The chorus asks her: ‘Come back!’ as if in a strange dance, so the end of this movement resembles a ritual dance.

This movement has two parts: the first is a painful monologue alternating with dissonant harmonies in the orchestra. The musical language I chose can be called again a combination of contrasts: a quasi-church monologue of the Bride, with a Gregorian chorale tie-in, and the orchestra plays a serial sequence that repeats in various modifications.

The second movement is a more classical dialogue between the soloist and the chorus. The orchestral tutti with the choir, the choral part is polyphonised, but also diversified by a modulating sequence.

6. Part Sub arbore malo - Under the apple tree - The apple tree here, as a symbol of the tree of fall, under which the first humans sinned, also becomes a symbol of the tree of life - that is, the cross on which the world was redeemed. The Bride's awakening under the apple tree is a co-resurrection with the Bridegroom, who takes her with him through the experience of death to be united again in eternal harmony.

Here, the orchestral part combines the juxtaposition of the simultaneously identical major and minor keys, different orchestral textures, and the technique of klangfarbenmelodie, where the melody is distributed in different instruments and turns into simultaneous sound. This technique is used several times in the movement, as well as the mirror roll call of the choir and woodwinds. The soloists dialogue in a quasi-church recitative mixed with cantilena.

7 Part Pone me - Put me down -

The final part, which is the summary of the whole book of Song of Songs: "Put me as a seal on your heart, a seal on your frame, for love is as strong as death, her jealousy is as hard as hell,

Her arrows are arrows of fire, she is a flame. The great waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers flood it.

If a man were to give up all the possessions of his house for love, they would have it for nothing".

This is the finale, which I entrust only to the choir and orchestra. The chorus and orchestra are based on cluster harmony with elements of polyphony. The instrumental fragment - I tried to depict the element of water with sounds. A symbol of evil that wants to flood love, to destroy it. But this part ends with the triumph of love - a small fugato in the chorus.