Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1337056
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 FEBRUARY 2021 6 MUSIC FONDAZZJONI Paulus is once again organising its annual con- cert of sacred music in the weeks associated with the feasts of the Conversion and Shipwreck of Saint Paul. In a year charac- terised by severe economic and social restrictions, Fondazzjo- ni Paulus is proud to present a scaled-down version of the Ra- bat Agape festival and concert. Given the current situation, this year's concert is not going to be open to the general public and will be broadcast on TVM2 on Wednesday, 10th February at 21:30. Besides celebrating the feast of St Paul's Shipwreck, this year's concert will honour the literary achievements of Pro- fessor Oliver Friggieri, Mgr Pietru Pawl Saydon and na- tional poet Dun Karm Psaila. Despite the ongoing pandem- ic, Fondazzjoni Paulus, with the collaboration of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, has strived to present another free concert to the public in order to continue promoting Malta's cultural and literary treasures. In order to celebrate Malta's Pauline heritage, this concert was filmed in the iconic St Paul's Grotto in Rabat. This year's repertoire in- cludes Steven Psaila's Meta- noia, Christopher Muscat's Epitaphium and Joseph Vella's Movement for String Quartet. The concert will also feature literature related to St Paul's Shipwreck in Malta and written by the aforementioned schol- ars. Psaila's work for string quartet is built on themes tak- en from his earlier work Katrin tal-Imdina. The reflective and spiritual nature of this work is typical of the composer's writ- ing and depicts the change in one's way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conver- sion (an all too obvious refer- ence to the conversion of St Paul). Epitaphium is the result of the composer's disturbed emotions following the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The fol- lowing day, while the world was still in shock and disbe- lief, the composer embarked on this emotionally-charged quartet which he dedicated to the victims of this historic tragedy. This quartet is argua- bly one of the composer's most daring works with prolonged passages of dissonance (mak- ing use of quarter-tones prac- tically throughout the work) and extremely slow tempi that contrast starkly to the frag- mented aleatoric sections. This work contains the composer's typical touch of contemplative spirituality: that inner path that he follows in search of the ultimate, immaterial and meta- physical truth. Vella's Movement for String Quartet is one of his earliest known major works. Com- posed in 1964 and catalogued as opus 3, this work is available on CD but was never performed in public. This is a delicate but profound work for string quar- tet, written in Vella's typical atonal idiom and shifts seam- lessly from one mood into the other. Fondazzjoni Paulus thanks the Malta Philharmonic Or- chestra, Bank of Valletta, Wig- nacourt Museum, Rabat local council and the Janatha Stubbs Foundation for their generous support. The general public is encour- aged to follow the Fondazzjo- ni Paulus Facebook page and website (www.fondazzjonipau- lus.org) for more information about this concert and other activities. Fondazzjoni Paulus teams up with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Professor Oliver Friggieri (above), and Dun Karm Psaila (left) Professor Pietru Pawl Saydon